Meditation Kamma

Meditation Kamma by Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

For this evening's talk. It was a couple of letters I had to answer last week, and I'm a very lazy monk. So instead of actually writing the same answers to the same letters, it's nice to put those questions in these Friday night talks and give the answers. So the next time anyone asks me these questions, I say, please listen to the talk instead of having to write out all these long letters. But somebody was asking about being a Buddhist and praying to God or Amitabha, or Goddess of Mercy for help in times of trouble. Is that an appropriate thing to do or not? And I also, I gave a talk to the monks on Wednesday night here about how we can meditate so easily and peacefully, because sometimes even monks say, oh, sometimes I just can't meditate. I think sometimes people think, oh, the meditation is such a difficult thing to do, and it's always because we're not doing it properly. And the link between those two questions how to meditate easily and simply. And now do Buddhist really pray to any superior power? All links together in a very fundamental teaching of Buddhism called the Law of karma. So there's heaps and heaps of things we can talk about with karma. For this evening, I'm going to sort of focus on these couple of actions and how so couple of aspects and how understanding, you know, more deeply, not just taken for granted in the law of karma, understanding it in a deeper sense, how it can just solve so many problems in our life. Answer all these questions and also make meditation really easy. Now for the first question here about like praying to sort of some divine being. Now, as a young man, even I saw through that. I mean, I know sort of maybe God these days has outsourced his call centers at some place in Bangalore when he gets so many requests for prayers every day. But, you see, I don't get struck down by lightning for making jokes about God. Nothing is beyond the ability to crack jokes in Buddhism. That's why I like Buddhism. You can crack jokes about Adam Brown, you can crack jokes about anything, which is wonderful. So instead of asking for favors, what the law of karma always teaches us, who reminds us is don't just ask someone for assistance or pray, just do something about it. Be proactive. Because a lot of times what happens is that when people are busy praying or asking, they could actually be doing something. Instead of praying for world peace. We can actually be creating world peace. Instead of going and having the service and asking for our prayers for the people in Burma or still in Sichuan province in China. We can actually be doing something about that. Now, there are no collecting donations or sending food over doing something. And sometimes I feel that in all of the the prayers and asking is missing an important point, that it's not some supreme being which controls your destiny or the destiny of the world, that we control that destiny. You control your destiny. And it's a wonderful thing to realize. That is a tough thing in a sense, because when you realize that your destiny is in your own hands and you're not a victim of some person up in the sky. Or anybody else for that matter. But your well-being, your future happiness and peace is in your hands. It means you take responsibility. It's a tough path for human beings to take that sort of responsibility, personal responsibility. But really, it's the only way forward. Even with something like climate change, it's not some government agents agency's responsibility. It's your responsibility, each one of us. It's the same with everything else. We take that responsibility when we take that responsibility straight away, instead of blaming someone else or asking for someone else, we do something. I still remember when the tsunami hit. I remember that very clearly because I was actually in Phuket that day, so not Phuket. I was in Penang, sorry, that day when a sudden army hit. And of course the tsunami killed a few people in Penang Island as well. And the reason I remember that is because my second monk at that time, Ajahn Chah, was very, very concerned. He was ringing up to try and find out. How I turned around was because I was in the tsunami zone. I found out afterwards he wasn't so concerned about me, but he was very concerned. If I died, he'd have to be abbot. And that was a big worry. I remember just when I returned and the, uh, newspapers were asking all the religious leaders, why did that happen? You know, was it sort of Allah's punishment or God's punishment, or was it people's karma? They did something wrong. They all had to die in that tsunami. And my straight response, because I've been a Buddhist for so long, because that is not the point. Now you're missing something. It's not why it happened. It's. What are we doing about it now? Because we're. Everyone is asking that question. There are people who are homeless, who are wounded, who are looking for their relations, who are grieving, who are in huge amounts of problems. Instead of wasting time saying why? The question we should always be asking is, what are we doing about this? And for me, that's always been such an important part of the law of karma. If whether it's a big tragedy or a personal tragedy, instead of thinking, oh, why does this happen? And why does it always happen to me? And that's why sometimes I think on a Friday night, why do I always have to give the Friday night talk? They never think that they can see what happens when you start being a feeling of victim, or feeling that you're put upon and say, why? Why me? Why does this always happen to me? That's not the point. What are you doing about it? Well, sometimes people get these terrible diseases like cancers, or their business goes bang or their wife runs away with their best friend or whatever it is, is there? Why did this happen? The most important thing to ask is, what are we doing about this? Because that is the calmer part of things. And the most wonderful part about the law of karma is that you can always do something. No matter what life serves you, you can always do something positive. Who's saying this to someone just a few minutes ago? Who has the relation who committed suicide? Now, this is an example. Why did they commit suicide? Was it sort of some karma from the past? Was it God's will or was it something I said or didn't do? And of course, you can see that as a natural reaction of many people when a tragedy, such as a suicide in the family happens. But what I would always impress upon people, it's not why it's now what are we doing about this right now? The past is gone. You can't change it. But certainly we can do something right now to create a better future for ourselves and other people. So suicides are less likely to happen. And so we can learn and grow from that. And if nothing, we can't use the simile which I've given very often. I'm sure you've heard that maybe only 2 or 3 weeks before, but I'll repeat it again here for the sake of this tape. It's like you go home, and on the way home you tread in the dog shit. When you tread in the dark set. If you are a good Buddhist who understand the law of karma, you never scrape it off your shoes, but you take it home first. And when you take it home, you always scrape it off under the mango tree in your garden and dig it in, because one year later, your mangoes are going to be sweeter than ever before. But the most important part is to remember when you eat that juicy mango what you're really eating, which is dog shit, but transformed into sweet, delicious, juicy mango. Now, the reason I use a shit word here sometimes people complain is because you remember that. Similarly, it's just a teaching aid for grown ups. And of course you understand the importance of this. And I mention that to the people who are talking about the relation who committed suicide. So if that's painful, that stinks. That's hard to bear. But there's also incredibly wonderful, powerful fertilizer for our compassion, for our wisdom, for our understanding of life in real life. Which is why there, when ever any tragedy happens to us or happens nationally or globally, this is just the fertilizer which life provides us from time to time. And we've got a choice what to do with that fertilizer. In my book, I Opened the Door of Your Heart, which had a title change for the US edition and the US edition, which some of you have seen was called who ordered This Truckload of Dung? And because that was relating to a particular story, that if you do have shit happens to you in life, you can dig it in and you can make this beautiful things out of the most unpleasant aspects of your life. There's always something you could do. Now, I use that as an extreme example to show that when these things happen to you or happen naturally, the law of karma means stop thinking why this happened. And do something about it. Dig it in. Yeah, it's tough to do. But the alternative, which is in that story. Who ordered the truckload of down is people carry the shit around with them in their pockets. And you find if you carried dung and smelly shit in your pockets or your bags, you lose a lot of friends. And you understand what I mean by this? When people really get depressed, angry and upset about what happens to them in life, no one likes to be around you. That's not the way to deal with these problems. Nor to praying, oh please God, take the shit away from me. You are stuck with it. It's yours. How it came. We don't really know. We can't say. Oh, it must be because something bad I've done in the past. And that's not what the law of karma means. Even the Buddha said that sometimes these things just happen because this is life. It's not something you've done. You just were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You're just being a human being. To understand that part, I'm going to digress. Now onto the story of the soldier. This is a powerful story, which happened when I was a young monk in Thailand, where I got a lot of my stories and understanding from a young man, was drafted into the Thai army, and he was wounded in a battle on the border. Even though there was not supposed to be any battles going on, there were still struggles in the border. Both the Burmese border, the Laotian border, the Cambodian border, which wasn't being reported for diplomatic reasons, but there was still firefights, went on. He was wounded. And so he had to leave the army, and he came to see his teacher at Changsha with his arm bandaged. And he said, oh, I just had really, really bad karma because I got wounded in a battle. Why did it happen to me? And I just looked at him and said, what do you mean? Why did it happen to you? You're a soldier. That's what happens to soldiers. You shoot bullets at other people. You can expect other people to shoot bullets at you. And some of those bullets would hit his head as the karma of being a soldier. They are likely to get wounded in the same way. Each one of you has been born as a human beings. If you'd only read the contract, especially the small print, you would have read that you can die at any time from a multiple number of causes. That's part of the comfort of being a human being. Understanding that we can accept that sometimes that deaths and sicknesses happen not because we've done something wrong. But simply be is part and parcel of the human life. It happens. And no one is to blame his part for being born. When we stop blaming people or start praying for someone else to solve this problem. We take personal responsibility. We decide, yeah, it's happened. Let's do something about it and let's start doing something about it. Is what karma really means. The meaning karma is a Sanskrit word meaning action to do something. That's what it means. So whatever happens to us in life is always something we can do. At the moment. We're building this big retreat center over. I visit my monastery in serpentine, a meditation retreat center. And whenever you're doing any building, this is a major project, over $4 million of buildings. And you may have built your house. Sometimes things go wrong. They don't work out according to the plans. But I've built so much stuff in my life when things do go wrong. There's nothing which a good builder can't solve. In other words, there's a little mistake and work with it. You can actually even make use of it and improve it. As I said in the end of the story of the two power bricks in the wall, a builder told me, when they make a mistake. They always tell the, the, the customers, the clients. It's a feature. It's the only house in the whole of Perth like this. And they charge everyone an extra few thousand dollars for the extra feature that he turned mistakes into advantages for them and other people. And the meaning of that story is when there is a problem that it is a mistake is always something we can do about this and make it sometimes happen. Make it something which is wonderful for ourselves. So what karma does, it gives us the responsibility and also the opportunity, knowing that no matter how bad it gets, no matter how painful it feels to how disappointing life can be, okay, we can always make something out of this. We can make a mango out of shit. We can turn anything around with our effort, with our wisdom, with our kindness. So instead of praying to somebody else, we take responsibility and we're active. We're proactive. We do things rather than complaining about things. Rather, light a candle than complain about darkness, says the old Chinese. Say. Instead of you having marital problems, relationship problems, health problems. Yeah. Now, what are you doing about that? There's always something you can do with what you have. Look at this story. This is a great story told to me by a marriage counselor in Singapore. She had a client. Her client was really lost. All of her love for her husband, who was coming home late from work. She suspected he had a mistress and he wouldn't sort of admit anything. The relationship was so on the rocks. It was almost as far to the bottom of the sea as the Titanic. But she went to the marriage counselor. She said, I want to get a divorce. The marriage counselor very skillfully said, does he love you? Then now, of course he doesn't love him. Love me? Well, then, said the counselor, if you divorce him now, he'll be very happy. Is that what you want? No. So here's a plan. See if you can make him love you again. Now dress up, be kind, be charming. You know, use all of your skills as a woman to win him back. And then when he falls in love with you again, then divorce him. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's the way to treat men. Well, so that was the plan. So she did what she was. Uh, suggested she bought some new clothes. Had a nice sort of makeover. Sort of. Was really kind. Even though he came home late, she was really charming. And every week, sort of, she'd do the corner, visit the counselor. How's it going? Said, actually, it's beginning to work. He's coming home earlier and he's actually being nice to me. He said, great, keep on going. You know the plan is working. And as the weeks went past, he came home early, was more friendly with her, started cuddling and kissing her and everything. And then she never called the council anymore. And so the council, after a month called the client said, what's happening now? Is he in love with you yet? He said, yes, he is. And like I said, great time to divorce him. Oh, no. He's so nice, though. Mission accomplished. That was a plan all along. So? So there's. Sometimes I like this story because sometimes it's always something you can do. And if your relationships on the rocks. What about trying to do something about it? Really putting huge amounts of effort into getting it back in line again. Some of which no, of course know I've never been married, so I don't know what you listen to me talk about marriage about, but I always have the understanding that all relationships can be fixed if you put in the effort and the time and work. Because I believe in the law of karma, because I've seen it happen so often, you can take a hopeless situation. I with wisdom, with compassion and also commitment. Real commitment to take time to turn things around. But it means you never give up. You keep on going and keep on going and keep on going. But that's us with relationship problems, with business problems as well. I don't know how many stories you see in motivational magazines about people who kept on going, and eventually they broke through and became the inspiring leaders of today's world. However, that's just what we can do in such difficult problems, and that's actually what Buddhists are supposed to be doing. Be really proactive and seeing how we can use our our wisdom and all our resources to work through and push through things with making good karma and don't wait for someone else to do it. We do it. It's not only that is because we take personal control over ourselves. We actually do become more successful simply because we are more active. You don't grow a garden by just sitting in front of your. On the back porch of your house and start praying. Oh, may the carrots come up. How may the potatoes come up? O. May the flowers bloom. You've got to sow some seeds, first of all, and dig and put fertilizer or whatever else you have to do in there. It makes actually much more success in your life when you put effort into it. And of course, you've seen what we've achieved over all these years with our Buddhist society and our monasteries. We have put effort into things, and when things go wrong, instead of blaming or getting dissolution to keep going on because karma is always work in action, it's work in action in progress. There's nothing you can't do. Imagine if I gave this talk to the West Coast Eagles and the Fremantle Dockers, who keep on losing every week. They come on guys, it doesn't matter. Stop looking at the past. Let the past go, okay? And do some good karma. Get your act together, guys. At least come to us for meditation. Learn how to levitate so you can catch the ball higher than the opposition. It's always something you can do. And a good example of that is just how instead of just letting other people do things for you, take control of the situation yourself. This is a story of the chicken farmer, another chicken farmer story. Of course, this is a joke, of course, but this is today's funny story. A chicken farmer had trouble with all his chicks wandering into the road, and people were driving so fast down this road, they kept on killing all the chicken chicks especially. So he asked a local council who were very supportive of local business, to say, can we sort of put a speed sign up so people drive slower so they won't see my chicks and kill them all? So the local cow said, yeah, we can do that for you. So they put a sign up, you know, 50km an hour. But being a rural area, no chance for any peace to be there. People didn't. He decided to they kept on speeding right past this poor guy's farm. And all these free range chicks were still slaughtered. So after three days, he rang them up again. The side is not working. Can you try something else? So they changed the side to say, you know, children crossing. Well, I know chicks are young. Now just slow down. And after three days, he had to ring up the council again, saying, look, they're paying no attention. They're still speeding and all my chicks are dying. And he said, look, can I put up a sign and my own car instead of waiting for someone else to do things? If you wait for the council to do things, you know what happens. But he got permission and he put up his own sign. After a couple of weeks, the council rang him up. So how's he going with your sign? So perfect. I haven't lost any chicks ever since I put up this sign. So what side did he put up? And he said I wrote up the sign. Nudist colony. Slow down. Naked chicks. Everyone's throat out. Let's see what we do. Slow down. Even if you're a Buddhist, yes, you probably would. That's why, for those who haven't seen on the internet yet, pictures of our retreat center there, we have a sign in front of our retreat center because it's being built now, you know how many people wander onto building sites and steal things. Especially we've got a prison up the road, you know, maybe sort of, you know, prisoners, friends on their way to visit their mates. They drop in to do a bit of business on the side. So in order to in order to keep people off our building sites, you know, we've got a picture of this on our on our internet site, we made a big sign. Jhana Grove meditation center. Trespassers will be converted. Trespassers will be prosecuted. Doesn't work, but trespassers will be converted. Yes, but no one wants to be converted. Actually, I put that sign up on our, uh, our monastery in the first year, but it got pinched. So please don't pitch this size even though it's original. So anyway, that's actually karma. Being wise, there's all sorts of ways which you can solve the problem if you're innovative, but don't wait for somebody else to do it. You do it yourself. Look how it's taking personal responsibility. And it's amazing just how successful and how many problems you can solve in life when you really start to use your own initiative. Other people can cheer you on. They're like the the crowd in the grandstand. As you're playing the game, they can cheer you on. They can encourage you. It's up to you to act, you to play that game, and that game is our life. But even deeper than that, with this wonderful law of calm, you get so much fun with making good karma at our monastery. Being a monk, we just love making good karma. So much. So if there's a job to be done in the monastery, even if it's not my turn, I will do it. Even if it's not supposed to be done because I'm supposed to be Abbott. Still, I would take Julia marks balls down or do something. You just enjoy doing things for other people, making good karma. When you understand what good karma is and just how it's so much good fun. It doesn't matter whose turn it is to make the tea in the morning. It doesn't matter who's turn it is to wash up when you realize it's a wonderful act of good karma to do this. You fight over the opportunity to do the washing up. No, I want to do it. No, no, I want to do it. You did it last time. No, it's my turn now. I want to do you have these wonderful fights in the monastery to try and do things? Obviously all good natured. Can I take the rubbish out today? Because you realize it's an act of service and it's a wonderful thing to do. Will, you do know what good karma is? It creates so much happiness and peace. You get inspired, as I said the other day, to do acts of right forgiveness. Why? This is good karma to do this, to say sorry. Doesn't matter. It might not be your fault. The other person's fault. Will you say sorry anyway? It's amazing just what happens when you inspire. So just because of the spirituality of doing any acts of kindness, good karma or whatever. It's great to be able to do that. But there's another aspect of karma which I wanted to bring up in this talk, which is very rarely talked about. And that's actually the calm of meditation. Because though you're coming here for half an hour of meditation, and I'm very proud that you all sit quietly for that half an hour. Even though there's sometimes this noise is going on, and that I'm really disappointed that some people come and say, oh, I can't meditate. And the reason they say they can't meditate is because they've got the wrong attitude to meditation. What meditation is, is making good mental karma. Rental car. So it's not just me. Don't make just karma by. By what you do or what you say. It's also by the way you move your mind. And what do I mean by making good mental karma? It's like learning how to make peace with things. Being kind with things. Embracing things. Accepting things. Not being fault. Finding or negative or argumentative with yourself. It is turning calm. Not what you do to other people, but what you do to yourself. And when I point that out, how many of you are just so aggressive to yourself and so argumentative and basically have so much ill will toward yourself? Learning about good meditation karma is when you close your eyes or any time during the meditation period. What are you experiencing? Be kind to that. Be peaceful. Be gentle. Let it be. This is this beautiful mental good karma to this moment. The opposite, which many people do in their meditate. Whatever they're watching say they may be thinking too many thoughts that I shouldn't be thinking. I'm supposed to be watching my breath. They're being unkind to themselves. Sometimes they're being aggressive. Come on. Get your act together. Watch your breath. How long have you been meditating for? You should be able to do better than this. Is that good meditation karma, or is it bad speech to yourself? When I point out, just like the law of karma works in the external world outside, it also works psychologically in your mind as well. Many people understand what it means to meditate. Now. It's not important whether you are sleepy, whether you are thinking. Doesn't really matter what the object of your mind is. What's most important is what you're doing about it. Since, like I said earlier, why the tsunami happened, that it happened. The most important question, the law of calm is what are you doing about it now? So when you say you're sleepy in meditation, what are you doing about it? Are you being kind to it? Are you say, opening the door of your heart to this sleepiness right now and being at peace with it? Or are you making war with it? How are you reacting to your mental state right now? So often when you make bad mental karma, in other words, you fight the mind. You try and control your own mind, your negative, when it doesn't meet your expectations. No wonder that leads to so much sense of frustration and thinking. I can't meditate, I can't get peaceful, I can't achieve these wonderful states now, which the books say reason is because you're making bad meditation calm or mental calm. So try making good mental karma, meditation karma. So next time you meditate, be kind, be peaceful, be gentle. Let go. Leave things alone. Let them be. And if you practice like that, you should know that good karma leads to good results. After making peace, being kind, being gentle with every moment you find the mind becomes so peaceful and so pure and so energized and so free. Why does that happen? Because you've made the good karma. It has cause and effect. That's all I remember. Just when I was in Thailand, a young monk, we used to get up at 3:00 in the morning. Over here. We only get up at 4:00 with slack. 3:00 in the morning. We used to get up in Thailand and used to have to go and meditate. By about quarter past, it had to be in the hall or else I never found out what else mix. I was always there in time. And you were sitting there, and I was always really sleepy in the morning when I was meditating, and I tried to fight that sleepiness and you couldn't fight through it. You just got even more sleepy. Or sometimes you'd break through and become awake, but then you'd be thinking too much. So, as always, between thinking and being sleepy and down. And it is so hard to find that middle path where you were just peaceful and alert. Know what meditation should be doing. And when I came to Australia, I looked back upon that said an obvious look. I was getting up really early in the morning, was supposed to only have four hours sleep at night I indulged. I had four and a half, but 4.5 hours sleep at night. For a young man I was sleep deprived. Lord. He mentioned a soft sort of food we eat in those monasteries 20, 34 years ago. Anything which crawled literally insects, bugs, snails. That's what we ate. So I was also malnourished as well. And it was hot. I was not used to that climate. So there you go. Sleep deprived, malnourished, a hot climate. What do you expect? Anyone would get sleepy? I'm sure if the Buddha was an English man, he would get sleepy in that climate as well. Cause and effect. That's all it was. So. I realized that making a walk with my sleepiness wouldn't work. I actually changed the realities. Well, it's obvious. Is cause effect as a last evenness to be. Be kind to her. Be gentle to her. Be peaceful. Make peace, not war. That's what the hippies used to say. Two fingers make peace, not war. I still say that as a man made peace, not war with your mind. In other words, make good karma with your mind. If you make good karma with your mind and it works, you make peace with every moment. Okay. Your mind is crazy. Allow it to be crazy. Make peace with it. Be kind to it. Open the door of your heart to this mind. No matter what it is. And that's what loving kindness is. It's open the door of your heart. No matter what you do. No matter where you go. No matter what happens. Can't we do that to ourselves or our mind in this moment? If you do. You're making peace. You're being kind. You're being gentle. As a way to meditate. Anyone can do that. Doesn't matter where you start from. Doesn't matter what's going on in your head. Doesn't matter if you're sick and in pain. You can always make peace. You can always be kind. You can always be gentle. You can never change what you're experiencing now to suit yourself. But certainly you can always change your attitude towards it. To make good karma. This is what we mean the attitudinal change to what you have to experiencing. Especially in deep meditation. When you make peace with things, you have peace. Just like watching the bricklayers build a retreat center. The brick layers. They put one brick a time on the wall. You could see them. Another brick, another brick, another brick. In a few months, you got this huge complex. All laid, one brick at a time. The house in which you live. The bricks were laid one by one in the same way. The House of peace is built by making one moment of peace at a time, and the next moment of peace, and the next moment of peace and the next moment of peace. And you've accumulated so many moments of peace. You have your house of peace, these beautiful, peaceful, deep meditations. So next time you meditate, remember this law of karma. How are you meditating? What are you doing with what you've got? Are you making good karma? Being gentle. And those of you who keep on saying I jam Brahms talks. Yeah, they're all very good. But how does this fit in with what the Buddha said? What I just described is the second factor of the Eightfold Path. Right intention or right reaction, if you like. Mr. Buddha always described the three right intentions, intentions of letting things be kindness and gentleness. Karma is intention, said the Buddha. Good karma is always letting go, letting things be. Stop fighting them, making peace with them, being kind. And Vincenzo. It's amazing what you can do with such attitudes. You don't get instant results when you make good karma. No more than you get instant results when you go to work. I don't know how many of you got paid today, but I remember this fellow who went to work on a Monday morning. He worked so hard all day and at the end of the day didn't get paid. He went to work on Tuesday, worked all day, worked really hard and said he got nothing for his effort on Wednesday. So what's the point of going to work? But his wife forced him to go, so he went to work on Wednesday. Worked hard. Still got nothing. Thursday. Well, nothing much to do. So he went to work on Thursday as well and on Friday. So it was a point going to work. But end of the week nothing better to do. So he went to work and on Friday his boss gave him a check and he thought, wow. From now on I'm only going go to go to work on Fridays. And of course, you don't realize that the Friday check is accumulating all that you've done before, all of your good karma, which you've done before. That's actually how karma works. You don't get instant results. You got to wait, build up the energy, build up the goodness, build up the peace so you make peace with every moment when you're meditating. You're kind to every moment. So someone comes in the door and they bang the door when you meditate. That's the moment you can either be angry and upset, or it's a moment you can make peace and be kind to be gentle. Which one are you going to choose? The way of good karma or the way of bad karma? The dog barks. What are you going to do? Or you burp or you have a stupid thought comes in your mind. What are you going to do? You got a choice. Her making good karma or bad karma with your mind. If you let it be. If your kind. If your gentle. You made another moment of good karma. If meditation. You just build that up. Moment after moment after moment after moment. And you can all do that and you find your meditation takes off. You know what peace is. Deep peace. Deep stillness. Deep kindness. All these stages, they just come naturally. They're just landmarks on the journey. All come from making peace. Then you have peace. I know so many people say that the thing which they want most of all in life is peace of mind. No. Even like rich people. Apparently, somebody showed me this, this talk, the Arvo Paavo lecture, which was given for business people a couple of weeks ago. And one of these mining magnates who's made millions gave the lecture, and all his business entrepreneurs thought that this fellow was going to give a talk on how to make more money from the mining boom, and instead he just gave his talk of spirituality and how important it was to have peace of mind and have meaning in life, and how all his executives would do very well just to watch their breath for five minutes. The stand peoples in the West Australian for us in the business section. So many of you may have missed it, but there was basic Buddhism in the business section of the West Australian from a mining magnate, simply because peace of mind was so important for us. And once we have that peace of mind, once we know how to train our mind, once we know the calm of men of mind, we can be deep meditation. We can rest. We can get rid of our stress. We can also be very effective in our work, in our life, in our relationships, because it's from our mind. When we know how to train the mind and know how to make peace, kindness, and gentleness in our mind. It's incredible just how powerful that can be in our life. Because you notice when you have negativity. Yes, sure. You know, you can justify your negativity and shout at this person or that person. But what does that really do in our world? Sometimes this is the person who shouts loudest or screams loudest wins. And that's sometimes not you. Not the person is right. So instead of following that type of path, you can follow other paths. It's amazing just how powerful peace can be. How powerful kindness can be. Gentleness can be. Never underestimate the force of gentleness. Sometimes when someone's shouting at you, pause. When they finish shouting. Pause for a few seconds. Don't shout back immediately. They'll be angry at you. Scolded you as soon as they finished. Be quiet. Only for five seconds, because that five second pause gives the other person a chance to listen to what they've just said. They're just reflecting on how they've scolded you. So amazing how powerful that five second pause can be. What usually happens when somebody scolds you? As soon as they stop you scold them back, or you justify yourself and you don't give them a chance to listen to what they've just said. Five second pause a moment of peace. It's incredibly powerful. They realize this. What a stupid thing they've done. Very often that happens. The ability to hold yourself on pause like that is marvelous. I remember one other sort of key incident which happened. Brilliant. A piece of psychology from a former teacher who I described about 15 years ago when he was a senior monk in Thailand. We were having our lunch, one meal of the day, in the morning, and in the middle of our meal, this woman burst in a Thai woman. It was really not the done thing. Completely lack of social etiquette, but we understand why she burst in because her best friend had just shot herself and she had found the body about an hour or half an hour, called the police. And the first thing she did was to come to the temple and she was distraught. She shot her, so she's killed herself. She shot herself, killed herself. And the head monk looked at her and then just looked out and carried on eating completely ignored her. And it was a wonderful thing to see. I said, what this monk doing? You can't do that. This man, this lady needs you. She's in stress. She's just found her best friend with a bullet in her head. Surely should just do something. But no, he just carried on eating and this woman came in screaming and riding around. Calmed down because no one was feeding her anxiety or hurt. Her stress, her pain. She calmed down. And when she was calmed down, this might put his spoon back in his bowl. Stopped eating. What's happened? As a beautiful piece of emotional intelligence. Because if he'd have got upset as well. Well, she's killed herself. How did it happen? What had happened? He would have just been part of this. His her dysfunctional, unhelpful, excited tragedy. By calming himself down, he calmed her down. And I've used that many, many times when people have had tragedies like suicides or like sudden deaths. When they come and see me. Sometimes to calm them down, I just start speaking very slowly because that calms people. There's many ways to calm people down, but soften them first of all, and then you can have a proper dialogue. But you could only do that when you know how to make peace, even with disasters. I remember this one guy once. This is in a previous temple over in North Perth. When I first came here, he'd fallen off a roof and it hit his head and he was actually crazy. Had brain damage. He was a very nice guy at first, but now he started dressing up like Elvis Presley and impersonating Elvis Presley. He was out of his mind and he came to see me and he was violent. He had his walking stick, and every now and again he'd start hitting me with a walking stick, but always missing. He's a very good shot. Thank goodness. And the only thing I could remember to do, I had no I had no training in how to counsel people who were that sort of mad. The only thing I could think of. Just make peace. Be kind. Be gentle. Make peace. Be kind. Be gentle. Even though I didn't know what I was doing. And I was in a very dangerous, very. Maybe not life threatening, but I could certainly got injured very easily. If I had said the wrong word and upset him, he'd have smashed me with his walking stick for sure. Be kind. Be peaceful. Be gentle. You calm the whole person down. Wonderful to be able to do things like that. When you know how to make good mental karma, you get good results. If you have aggression force. Sometimes it works temporarily, but a lot of times the other person is stronger than you and you lose. Good mental come to keep your mind peaceful and calm. To be gentle. To be kind. Never underestimate that power. The last story again. These are stories some of you may have heard before. It's a marvelous story for one of my disciples over in Sydney, Julie. I saw her just a few weeks ago. She's doing really well with her business. She was in the clothing business, and actually some of her designs or her imports get sold in by us. And and David Jones. So she's doing really well. But she once had to go at a moment's notice from Sydney all the way to London to close a contract with some big firm over in UK. Hardly any notice at all. So she just got on the first available flight to Heathrow, completely jet lagged and tired. She only had time to check into her hotel. Before she had to go. I don't think she even had a shower. Had to go to the boardroom to meet the managing director to sign the contract. When she turned up in the boardroom, the directors told her you've wasted your journey. The boss is in a filthy mood. No way is he going to sign any contract at all. We've met him this morning. He's so angry. You might as well just go back to your hotel and go. Go back to Sydney straight away. And of course, he said, look, I've come all this way. At least I'm going to see the guy. Suit yourself or waste the time. They said what she did while she was waiting. Sit in a corner and meditate. She did her loving kindness meditation. Five minutes later, the door opened. Who's she? What's he doing? I try to be an angry boss. Also try to wake some of you up as well. And I think it works. What does she want? And so she came out of her meditation and she told me she didn't know where this came from. But she stood up and looked at managing director in the eye. And the words just came out, which were, you've got such beautiful blue eyes, just like my baby Holly back in Sydney, as he didn't do that, trying to be smart. She did that out of pure kindness because she had just been meditating on kindness, and the power of that statement was so amazing that managing director went all soft and mushy and said, oh, do I really? That's so. And in five minutes she had a contract signed. The managing director went out and she tried to get back to her hotel, but she couldn't because the other board members crowded around her. Teach us how you did that. And so she had to spend the next half an hour or an hour teaching some basic meditation to these poor directors who just said what they could said to be a miracle. How? Kindness. Had his gold contract signed with a lot of money, and had actually changed an angry managing director in a second. Into being on your side. Never, ever underestimate the power of such kindness and gentleness when it comes from the right place. It's good karma, and I believe in that magic power much more than any guard or Amitabha or Guanyin or anything else, because I've seen it work and it's not something you ask other people to do, you do it yourself. You take that responsibility to train your mind, to train your speech, to train your body, to make good karma. And it works. That's why one of the basic laws of the world Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Muslim, I don't care. Karma is a basic law which you can see happened in acts of kindness, gentleness, peace. You work hard. You do something about the problems of your life in the world. And also you do some work on the problems of your mind. You make it peaceful. You learn how to be kind and gentle. Not only do you have really nice meditation, and not only can you meditate. No matter how you're feeling. Don't try and change how you're feeling. Make peace with it. Be kind with it. Be gentle. Then everything gets nice and wonderful and successful. And no matter what happens to you in life, especially your later years, when you get old and sick and die, you can die with peace, with gentleness, with love. Because you know how to make peace. To be gentle. To have kindness with anything. What a wonderful way to live. What a classic, graceful way to die. The talk on karma in the world and in the mind. Thank you for listening. So anyone got any questions or comments about tonight's talk? Sorry about the joke about the nudist sign. Actually, somebody, a our admin officer downloaded from the internet three jokes. And those jokes all came from here. From the internet. I know, I know one for sure, I invented. I didn't get that joke from anywhere else. So you are ahead of the game when you come here. If you always want to know where that actually jokes came from. So some of them come from right here. Uh, Samar Samatar award for Don Bhagawan de Avila. Jami. So I got to buy a at a dozen more. Come on. Dama. Sorry. Sir, I'd pad up a little. Ah ah ah ah! No sign of Mami.