Reasonable Resolutions

Reasonable Resolutions by Ajahn Brahm

Transcription

Yes, come through the new year. And it is the custom. It is in Western culture where you grow up. So when you have a New Year celebration, we make resolutions. We set goals. And so the talk this evening is about setting goals or what you should set goals and what goals and how goals and what should you do about goals. So my New Year's resolution this year, just let everyone know in public is to eat more. Now, the reason is because last year's resolution was to eat less and it didn't work. So this year I'm using reverse psychology. Well, it just shows you just sometimes we make resolutions that it is a habit, a custom. So whenever we have a transition, especially from one year to another year, we usually look forward and say, what do we want to do, what we want to achieve, and how can we do that? And so many people, they do set goals. So I wanted to talk about goal setting in terms of Buddhism. I know that sometimes we tell people, oh, Buddhism should set no goals at all. Live in the present moment. But look, if I always lived in the present moment, I'd still be in serpentine today. It's only because I plan to come here that I managed to move from my meditation to the car and get in it, because I had a goal to get here this evening. You'll find you really some goals, but there are times where we don't have any goals and sometimes it confusion with Buddhism. People think, oh, it's such a passive religion. It just sits there and does nothing as if it's like some zombie. And of course I'm you've seen many, um, uh, monks and nuns over here in the many years. And monks and nuns are not zombies. They're actually very active. We do sort of set goals. We have a time when we set no goals at all. So in this talk and the telling about when you do set goals and also the times when you set no goals at all and you just rest in the moment, become peaceful. And the balance we have between those two activities. But first of all, if you are going to set goals, then by the first thing to do is to set reasonable goals. In other words, know what goals are worth setting. And don't aim too high. Because what happens if people set so many really high goals which are completely unachievable? What happens is they get disappointed. They usually blame themselves and get into guilt. They get frustrated and they become a mess. And when you become a mess, you're more problem to myself and all the other monks who come here by asking too many questions. So I want everyone to be happy so I can be a person. So use no reasonable goals and don't get too high. And the reasonable goals though should also be goals which are really useful. So sometimes when we set a goal, we have a plan of action. We really want to get there. Is that really what you really want in life? I was just telling somebody today that some people's goals are very well informed by, uh, ancient philosophy. When I was a student, I read Plato's Republic. Now, Plato was talking about his teacher, Socrates, and was saying some of the advice which Socrates gave him. And in ancient Greek mythology, they also had reincarnation and their ideas going over the River Styx, where you completely lost contact with your life, and you went over to what was called the Elysian Fields. And I say, I'm heaven, Rome, where you rested for a while. And then when it was time for you to go back to work again, in other words, take another human rebirth. The interesting part of the way that Socrates described rebirth was everybody has a choice. What do you want to be reborn as? And he said, and this was a wonderful part of his little description, the part which I thought, wow, now this Socrates really knows what he's talking about. He had inside. He said, the stupid people always choose to be wealthy and famous said, that's the last thing you want to be wealthy and famous. Look at all the other wealthy people in this world. All the famous people in this world. Is that really what you want? So you go and check out whether that is a really reasonable thing to aspire to in this life. And he said, I just being poor is equally sort of extreme. And even Socrates, the ancient Greek philosopher, realized that the best niche in life is not to be too wealthy, not to be too poor, but in the middle somewhere, not to be famous, but just to be well liked by your friends, but not to be too well known by other people. So you had to see why that's the case. I don't know why people want to be film stars or models or rock stars and become famous. I don't know why anybody wants to become a famous monk, even. Unfortunately, sometimes I am a famous monk. Somebody told me that I've got Facebook and it's about 1500 plus people. I've never seen it myself. I don't know what they're saying about me, but it does get a problem. Sometimes when you go travelling, you can't get any rest because people know you. And unfortunately, when they know you come and ask you questions about all sorts of things. And one of the stories, one of the extremes was when I was traveling back from Los Angeles. I've been on a teaching tour in Canada and the United States and obviously many, many days and very, very tired. And it's a long flight and transiting in Singapore airport for about two hours. But of course, I go to Singapore regularly, and you've got many people who work for Singapore Airlines who can get access inside. So they're all waiting for me at the gate. Some disciple and I thought, oh no, can I get a bit of peace and quiet? And so they started, told me down and gave me a cup of tea. But give me a cup of tea. It wasn't a real reason for me. To me, the real reason was I can ask questions about their meditation, questions about their kids, questions about Buddhism, questions about this, and saying, I've been doing this for such a long time. I just got really fed up. But how can I get out of this? I thought. And I thought the only place I can get out of this is going to the toilet. So I told him I needed to go to the toilet. It wasn't really a lie. I wasn't desperate, but it was. I needed to go to the toilet, not to relieve myself of, uh, relieved my barber to relieve my ears. So I went to the toilet to leave my ears. But unfortunately, those of you who have been in Singapore and been in the in the airport there know that all the toilets there, they've got toilet attendants. And as soon as I went into the man's toilets, the toilet attendant recognized me. Are you Ajahn Brahm? Oh, no. And he started asking me questions about meditation. And so when you can't even go to a toilet to escape fame, they just realize it's not nice to be famous. When you're not well known. You can have some peace and quiet by yourself. So the goals you should really have in life if you are going to set goals, don't try and be famous or trying to be wealthy. Even by being wealthy. I've known many wealthy people and many wealthy people just are basically nutcases. They just. They are just so paranoid and afraid of losing their wealth. Of being workaholics. And of course, one of the extreme cases was this time when I went to bless a house a here in Perth on the river, a big mansion. And when I went to bless this house, I needed to go to the toilet. Not the toilet story, but this time when I asked to go to the toilet, she said it was a bit difficult to give you directions, so she drew a map for me. The house was so big she had to have actually a map. How to go from the room I was in to go to the toilet and it was a long one, but nevertheless, when I came back and just did a blessing for her afterwards, I asked, this is a big house, how many of you live in here? And that's when she said, only me. And I was really shocked. I've seen this many times. She lived in this huge mansion by the river alone, said, why can't you? Relations and friends come in here and said, I'm always scared of relations coming. There was always asked for money and friends to the so afraid that she was one of the most loneliest people I've ever met. I thought, wow, who wants so much wealth that it separates you from other people? And I said, he also. For those of you who contemplating building a house or changing your house, please get a smaller house. I'm saying this not just to save you money and save you lots of cleaning time, because haven't you noticed that big houses separate you from your loved ones? When everyone stays in their own room and you can't even hear what's going on in your son's bedroom with so many empty spaces between you and them. Big houses means you don't have much social contact with your mother or father with your children when you're growing up. And I remember living in a very, very small apartment. I had to share a room with my brother. And you were always bumping into your parents. You couldn't get away from them. What that really meant for me? I had to learn how to live with other people, to get on with them. Because you couldn't escape. You couldn't have your own personal space. Because you couldn't have your own personal space. You learnt a huge amount of social skills. Give and take forgiveness. You can get into arguments because. No way to hide. Nowhere to hide. Especially when your brother was bigger than you. So you couldn't get into arguments. You couldn't have fights. You couldn't sort of have any problems because you had to live together in a confined space. And to this day, I always think that having a family in a small house is a far greater social cohesion and love. So who wants to be rich? Sometimes the poor people. And you've noticed this. As long as I've got enough. I'm not talking about abject poverty. As long as you've got enough. You find that the richness of poor people is each other, the family, the social cohesion. I wonder why does that happen in poor, poor families? They have this great social cohesion, and it's because they are always on top of each other. They have to live together. They have to work together. So sometimes wealth is a is a curse to us. So if you have a New Year's resolution, please don't have a New Year's resolution to win the lottery or to get that great contract, or to build the amazing house, or to get your yacht, or to have all these amazing holidays. Look. Make the goal reasonable, something which will really make you peaceful and happy. So if you have a New Year's resolution, what sort of New Year's resolutions would you do as a Buddhist? Obviously, you know, to be they even don't go saying, I'm going to meditate more this year. This year I'm going to go to every meditation, going to meditate for half an hour every day. Don't do stupid things like that, because what that's actually doing is missing the point. It's not meditating. It's what it's meditating supposed to give you. Meditation is there to make you peaceful and make you kind, to make you wise. So when we understand the purpose of doing these things, make the purpose of these things a goal. Not the means, but the purpose. What the end is. The same when people want money. What do you want money for? You want money for? To have peace, enjoyment, comfort. I only got that already. I know that I heard a great quote when I was in New Zealand. I forget who actually originated this quote. They say that when you want more money. That stops you enjoying the amount of money you already have. That's a very great quote though, because when you want more. It is so concerned about how you're going to get more, what you're going to do to get more. You can actually rest right now and enjoy the benefits of all the hard work you've done so far. What you really mean there? You've worked hard. You've got some money. Now pause for a while to enjoy it, to get the fruit of what money is there for a while. You're working, enjoy your holidays, enjoy your peace, and don't keep thinking how it can make more. If you can do that, then you understand what the purpose of money is and you make use of that money. You enjoy it. You make peace with it. You have a good time, rather than always wanting more and more and more, more and more. Because every time you want more, you're always thinking of the future. You're not enjoying what you've already made, what you can enjoy. Right now. So many people are always wanting more, always wanting more, always wanting more. They're never enjoying what they're doing now. It's one of the little reflections which I teach when people do meditation retreats, because sometimes we have meditation retreats here and overseas, which I teach, and one of the little exercises I give them is when you're eating. To eat one morsel at a time. Because many people, when they have their lunch or their dinner. And you can check this out this evening, if you come back and have dinner or what you do tomorrow. Usually people say you're eating with a spoon. You've already got one morsel in your mouth which you're chewing. And very often people got another lump of food on their spoon waiting in line. There's also a third piece of food heaped up on the plate, and they're already thinking what they're going to eat next. So how can it really be enjoying what they actually tasting now, when about 2 or 3 spoonfuls ahead of themselves and you can find that's probably what you do. Try it next time you eat. See just how you eat? Are you really tasting, enjoying the food, or are you planning what you're going to put in your mouth in 2 or 3 seconds from now? How can you enjoy this moment when you're planning what you're going to do next? So one of the important things of money is to be able to rest, to enjoy. So you can have a bit of peace and quiet and enjoy the fruits of what you've already earned. Though there has to be a time when we were. There has to be a time when we rest and we just enjoy what we have and understand what the purpose of these things is. It's the same with the purpose of meditation. What are you meditating for? To get peaceful, to get kind. So I tell people, you meditate here and you go home and shout at your wife or get angry your husband and stop meditating him. You're not understanding his purpose, obviously meditating in the wrong way. But if you're meditating here and you find you're an easier person to live with, a calmer person, the kind of person, then great, you're understanding the purpose of what we're doing this for. This understanding the purposes of our main purposes and making them the goals in your life. A good example of this is some of you are in the caring profession. May be doctors, psychologists, psychiatrist, nurses, counselors, or whatever. What is your goal, say as a doctor or as a nurse? Sometimes people have the wrong goals in certain the medical profession, and I think their goal is to cure the people of their sickness. But if you go into such a profession, want to cure other people, you would have a lot of suffering in life simply because there are some people whose diseases are so bad or that are so ingrained, there's nothing you can do. That how many doctors have come to me and been so sad and frustrated that there is a tragic case of somebody they said they could not help and they died. And I say, look, you're missing the point. It's not being a doctor. It's not about curing people. It's about caring for them. Because sometimes you can't cure a person. Sometimes it's a terminal disease or a chronic disease which just keeps going on and will never get better. You can't cure them, but you can always care for them. And the real goal of such professions should be to care for the person. Care for the person first. That's a main objective. That's the main goal. Because that's something you can always do, and you will never get disappointed or frustrated if you go into that situation. I'm not trying to get them better, but to care for them. If you care for them, then cure becomes almost like a bonus, a byproduct. You're caring for them, doing their very best. But you don't demand that they're going to get healthy. That shall not. Your main purpose, your main aim. The same with psychology or psychiatry. You go in there and you want to sort of cure the people. Again, it's just so frustrating and so tiresome. You just can't do it. But you can always care. That's the time you can do with everybody at any time. So remember the goal of these. That's why they call them the caring professions, not the curing profession, the caring professions. That's something you can always do. So when you understand what the goal is, you know, take care not to cure. Then you have a proper purpose, a goal which you can actually achieve, which means you don't get frustrated when the problems with setting goals is that you set these goals are not wise goals. Are you going to medicine wanting to cure people and can find that magic sort of cure to solve all the problems in the world, or to teach everybody to meditate and get into genres, become enlightened? That's not the goal of me being a teacher. If you set the wrong goals again, you get frustrated. You get angry. You get upset. Create more problems than that. So the real goal should always be to care, to be kind. So you can do which gives the best possible result. And even a person does die even if the mental illness doesn't improve still. So if their mind improves, they know that someone actually accepts them for who they are. They're kind to them, they care for them. And it's a huge positive impact you you have on people. There may be somebody in your family you'd hope maybe get over that problem. They hope maybe get rid of the financial problem. The social problem may be going to jail. They may go bankrupt. They may have some terrible cerebral palsy or or schizophrenia. And instead of looking for the magical cure. Question of your goal. Our goal is to care for that person as they are something we can always do. Perhaps that was one of the things I learned as a student. When I used to go to what I used to volunteer when I was a student at Cambridge every afternoon, going to Auburn Hospital, which was a hospital for those who had, um, mental disabilities, and especially working as a volunteer occupational therapist every afternoon, once a week with down syndrome kids. Like many people who go into that, my goal for doing that was to be a goody goody. Basically, I had a friend who was a Christian, I was an avowed Buddhist, and we were in competition together. And when he said he was going to go do social work, I thought, if you're doing it as a Christian, I'd better do it as a Buddhist. As Buddhist, we're more compassionate than you are. Nah nah nah nah nah. That sort of attitude I had as a student. So he decided to go. So I had to go as well because he was a good friend. So he had great talks and arguments together. So I went there and I went there for two years and I enjoyed that so much. I looked forward to it. It wasn't any sacrifice. What I learned, though, is I did learn about emotional intelligence because down syndrome kids, they weren't articulate. With words by the incredibly articulate and emotionally straight away that, you know, come out to you. I said, you're looking sad today and are quite right. They were picked me up straight away. And so I learned from them how to sort of, uh, how to communicate on another level than words, just feeling emotional language. That's what I learned from the down syndrome kids, and I know that from them. I learn also how to care, because there's no way that that, um, condition would ever be alleviated. You never tried to find some magical cure so they could become so-called normal people, no matter what normal people is. I expect I said to them as normal. They were part of life, part of the whole fabric of life. Not excluded, but accepted. When I did that, I realized I could actually care for them. And that was a wonderful thing you could do. And obviously they showed immense care for me to sometimes brought me to tears. So understanding that you can always care for people gives another goal to life. Not curing. Not changing them, but just caring for them. So your goal in life, you can't change your husband. You can't change your wife. You may be doing that for a long time, trying to change the bad behavior or the irritating, uh, parts of their, their life. But can't you care for them instead? The totally different goal which gives totally different outcomes. Outcomes which are actually positive. What about the goal of religious harmony in this world? How can you get religious harmony in this world by converting everybody to being a Buddhist? It's impossible in which Buddhism is so many different types of Buddhism, so you can't do that, and that'd be a stupid thing to do. So, you know, there's all these crazy fundamentalists who want to convert everybody to be just like them. They create so much disharmony, frustration, anger, and even violence in our world. Now our job is not to change anybody. Really, the message of all religious leaders was not to try and change anybody. That wasn't their goal. Their goal was to care for each other. For the Buddhist. To care for Muslim. The Christians to care for the Buddhist. For each one of us to care for atheist. Anybody. Isn't that what our religions are supposed to be able to do? Our goal is not to convert, but care. And that's something we can always do. And I try and remember that just, you know, when you are talking with people from other religions. I remember just as one of our monks who got caught travelling in a train from Newcastle all the way to London. And of course, a brown robe to a Christian fundamentalist is literally not a red rag or brown rag to a ball. As soon as this saw this man, this Christian fundamentalist came along, sat right next to him and started haranguing him. Because, you know, in Christianity, you can convert a Buddhist. That's actually extra merit points. Especially a month. So they try to get the extra merit points by converting it as harangue him all along the journey. And this mark was very peaceful and just say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. And at the end of the journey, everyone was looking at him and the monk just said, well, you know, I still, even though I'm a Buddhist, I still love you. And put his arms around him and gave him a hug. And I completely sighed as a Christian. But what was the purpose of the Christianity? Just to show love. And the monk was showing more love than he was. So he got to the the heart of it, caring for each other no matter what's happening. If you have that care if make that your goal, it's something you can actually achieve. So we have set goals which are achievable and also useful because the usefulness of care, it does create harmony, it does create peace. And it stops many of the problems in our world today. I got a question from somebody some time ago who asked me, is there such a thing as like your anger in the sense that anger which is justified, which is right now because it solves the problem and and gets the thing settled? Is it okay in some circumstances to get angry at somebody? Because I might just shout at them, at angry at them, then they behave afterwards and I say, absolutely not. There's no such thing as pure anger. Anger is always impure, a negative, because what are you trying to achieve by getting angry? If you really care for the other person. In other words, you want to help them change their way of speaking their actions, the way they look at things. If that is really your goal to help them change. Then how is the best to actually achieve that? If they can change, that is, sometimes they weren't. As I said, you can always care for them even if they don't change. If they are good at change, how? If you're in that situation and someone got angry at you. Would that really help? Would they really achieve anything? Sometimes, okay, you would behave just out of fear and when they're not around, you revert back to your normal way of doing things. I remember that's what happened to me when I was at school. You know, you get punished if you broke the rules. And all that taught me was not to break the rules or not to keep the rules. What it taught me was not to get caught. Next time to be more sly, be more sneaky. That's all I ever learned from punishment. I thought I was stupid to get caught, so I never learn anything from such sort of violence or such shouting or such anger. You learn much more from people who really care about you and show that care. But instead of having pure anger, somebody, whether it's your husband, whether it's your people at work to get more out of them, anger just diminishes. You know what you really want to achieve. It may be quick results, but temporary results, not real results. But if you care for somebody and show it, then you get results. Because when people care for you, you want to help them back. That's always been the case in life. So instead of getting angry at a person, we can go other ways. They're caring for another person. Show that you appreciate them so you care about them enough to say, well, listen, this is really affecting me. Probably affects you too. If you talk to them in a kind way, they're more likely to listen and take it on board. I know that some people say that some people are just so, um, have no conscience at all. It is so stubborn. They will not listen to anybody that, like psychopathic in their tendencies, got no sense of right or wrong. Completely self-centered and just don't care about anybody else in the world. I thought that might be the case when I was young, but I had the privilege of going to visit some of the most horrendous characters in in jails, in prisons, both in UK. I have been in Changi Prison a couple of times and also here in Australia too. And one of the things I found to discover going to see this horrendous murderers and rapists and serial frauds and gangsters. One of the things I found in the visiting this people was they did have a conscience. I knew that many of them would not let on, that they did feel sorry for what they did. I remember one telling me the first time said, I can never tell this to any other prisoners because we're not supposed to do this in jail. I was supposed to be the tough guys. Who never did anything wrong. He said really? Everyone in this show feels terrible about what they did. Never an hour goes past when you don't regret and think, if you'd only had a chance to do that moment again. You had never done that terrible crime and hurt so many people. It was quite a revelation to me to see that as business. Yeah, they did have a conscience. So if those prisoners, the murderers, the gangsters, the rapists, the people I've met, if they had a conscience and they really felt bad about what they did. Surely everybody else has conscience. These were the worst of the worst I've known. They do have a conscience. Knowing they do think about things. Knowing that's part of having a human mind. You know, we can always work on that. So by being kind, we don't have to get angry. Another person, we can actually use the power of kindness by being kind. It does not mean that you just allow the other person to continue on the way they've been doing all along. This kindness opens up the door to criticism. The positive criticism even in our monastic community. We have the rule of mutual admonition. So. But we have rules about this. So if I see any amount misbehaving or doing something wrong, as the abbot is a teacher of a monastery, I just can't just say, oh, just let it be. But I can't also get angry. So what I have to do, I have to choose the right time and the place number one, where you can approach that much like time and place is important. Because if you really care about another person enough, if you really tell them off in public, if you tell them off when they're tired, if they tell them off and they've had so much stress in their day, they're not going to listen at all. As I mentioned here many years ago, if you have a partner and is something you really delicate you want to talk about, maybe criticize them for some of them not doing right or something which is irritating you. One of the best things to do is to take them out for an expensive dinner. At best Restaurant, where they like to eat, you know, and you serve dress up nice. You know, if you're a husband, put on a nice suit, make it a really nice evening. And when you get to the final course, then you can tell your partner anything. There'll be so softened up, they say, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. I think you're right that I do come home a bit late. Oh, I, uh, really are right. My cooking is terrible. Oh, I don't know what it is, but when people are in a good mood and they're relaxed, it's very easy to talk to them. So if you've got something sensitive to talk to a person, take them to a good restaurant, take him to a movie or take them to some sort of play, and so they can have a good bit of enjoyment, and then you can actually hit them with what you need to hear them with. That's far more effective than getting angry at them. The first thing, choose the right time and place number two is to make sure you got all the facts right, because I don't know how many times people have told each other off when it was not their fault. So get your facts right. First of all, that saves a lot of problems in marriages and also in offices and other other even in monasteries as well. And the next thing is to make sure that you are speaking kindly. That's what the Buddha said. Say words which are gentle to the ears, which go to the heart, even though the criticisms of the other person to say that kindly, the other person hears. Why are they still really care for me? But it is a mistake in my contact. Yeah, I am a bit lazy when I'm working. I don't get up in time. I am nodding when I meditate. I'm doing this, I'm doing that. So this is how we actually deal with problems with monks. We do it with kindness and care and obviously they respond, wow, that is who really cares about me. So, you know, you really want to sort of listen because everybody wants to develop and wants to grow. They want to be better. We all want to be better people. Sometimes we just want to know how to do it and not be told in such a way which which frightens us or hurts us. If you do it that way, you don't need anger. Other ways are very, very effective. And of course now use these in very difficult and dangerous situations. And it always works. You don't need to get angry back even when the other person deserves it. The problem is with many people. Some people do some terrible things. They really are selfish. They hurt others. But even so, anger is not justified because it is always another way, a much better way. And you know what happens when we still have anger, which is like verbal violence. It goes on to physical violence. You just have to look at all the wars which are happening right now in this world today. To understand is where anger gets us. We get angry at them. They get angry back. We have revenge. They hurt us. We hurt them more. We get what's happening in Palestine and Israel. Wars go on and on and on. And both sides have got righteous anger. If you ask the Israelis for their anger, this is pure anger and they deserve it. This Hamas, you ask the Hamas, none of the Israelis deserve the rockets. Is there any solution there? Where we go, go in that direction. There has to be another solution. There is another solution. The other solution is that Israelis to care about the Hamas and the Hamas to care about the Israelis. If we can get to that point, those people really care about each other, don't want to change each other, but care about them. They may actually get somewhere in life. So the goal should not be to change or to get angry in another person, but just to care for them. But it's not just other people. What about yourself? Do you really want to change yourself and become a better person, a richer person, a healthier person? Or what do you want to do in your life this year? What is your goal for this year? How many people last year got so stressed out and tired you got sick? What are you trying to achieve? What about making your goal to care for yourself this year? The beautiful word to care what it really means to care for your own health, happiness and well-being. Your peace. Make that important. Because it is important that you are happy and peaceful. In fact, if you are happy and peaceful and content. That's the one of the best gifts you can give to other people. A happy person, a caring person becomes a blessing to this world according to the Buddha, because you're actually showing other people what's possible and inspiring other people. Being like a leader, an example. So if you're a happy person, you actually spread happiness. If you're an angry person, you spread anger. If you're a miserable person, you spread depression. If you are a happy person again, you spread this lovely energy. That is who you are. Spread such a lot in your society. You just have to think, how many people do you meet every day? Multiply by 365 and that's how many people you have influence over the last 12 months, and how have you influenced them? So if you are a peaceful, kind, happy person. If you cared enough about yourself to give yourself moments of peace and heaps of forgiveness and lots of kindness and care. Then you'll find your art generating a huge benefit for other people. So to care for another person is should never be at the expense of yourself. Understand that you can't as well if you don't. Haven't read this story before. It's one of the statements that is for a long time now. The story of the seven monks meditating in a cave. This is in opening the door of your heart. Seven monks were meditating in a cave. Just on caring, on love. May all beings be happy and well. What we find in Buddhism. May all beings be free from suffering. I opened the door of my heart to all being. So in this cave were seven monks. There was a Hedmark number one. The second man was his best friend. I know his brother. Sorry. Brother was the second man. The third monk was his best friend. And the fourth man was his enemy. Now even monks and have personality clashes. You don't know what it is. Somebody just cannot get on. So the fourth mark in this group was the head monk's enemy. And the fifth monk was a very old man. In fact, he was so advanced in years he could die any time even. Actually, that evening he was on the edge of death because of his old age. And the sixth monk was a very ill man. He was actually so weak with his sickness that no one knew who would die first. The old man or the sick man and the last monk. Number seven was what we call the useless monk. Every time he tried to chant, he would turn off key and lose his face. When he meditated, he wouldn't just go to sleep. He'd snore, disturb everybody else. He couldn't keep his robes on properly either. He was a useless man. I often mention every monastery has one. So anyway, those were the seven months meditating by all beings. Be happy and well. And according to the story, a group of thieves, a gang of thieves, found these monks who were in a cave in the jungle. Meditating on lovingkindness, they found this cave and I thought this would be a great hideout so they could use this as their base. Deep in the jungle, concealed. And they could go into the towns and villages around Rob, and then run back with their loot to the cave to store it there and never get caught. So I thought, this is going to be their, their, their headquarters, their hideout. But of course they thought they got to kill all these monks first of all. Otherwise that one of the monks would tell the authorities. And what use would it be of a hideout? They decided to kill all of them. But the head monk. He was such a good talker. Like other head monks. You might know it's such a good. So I said good talker. And he talked and argued and eventually came to a deal with his band of thieves. The bandits insisted on killing one of those monks as a warning for everyone else to keep quiet. And that's the best deal the headman could make. All the rest could go free. But one man had to die. And so the headman had this terrible decision to make. Which monk would have to be sacrificed for? Everyone else could go free. Now, if you know the answer to this riddle, please be quiet. If you read the story, you'll remember on the tape. Shut up. Because some of you haven't heard this. And I want to see if you understand what the right answer was. So I'm going to ask you if you were the head man, who would you choose to die? Now here's the list again. So listen carefully. There was the head man himself. Number two was his brother. He loved him. Number three was his best friend. Had grown up together. Number four was the enemy who he didn't really like. Number five was an old man. He had lived so long. Anyway, he was about to die. The next man was a very ill man who was actually next to death as well. Maybe that could put him out of his misery. Who knows? And the last monk was a useless monk that his whole life and never made a positive contribution to anybody. So with those seven months, those who haven't heard the story before. Who do you think was sacrificed? Who did the head monk to? I come on, make my day. Say something. He heard himself. Those of you who think he sacrificed himself, put your hand up. Okay, you are all wrong. Now, that's the most common answer. That he sacrificed himself. And that's one of the reasons why I asked that question. Just to bring it up the most people think he sacrificed himself. That's the wrong answer. So, any other suggestions? Brother. Enemy? No. That's wrong. Sorry about that. That's wrong. The useless man. He always gets a mention. Useless man. No, I, I was. I will stop the the interrogation now because the answer was the head monk couldn't choose his love and care for his brother was no more. No less than the love he had for his best friend. He even loved his enemy exactly the same as he cared for the old monk, the sick monk and the useless monk. Exactly equal. The door of his heart was open to all beings without distinction. And discriminating, loving kindness. He loved everybody equally. The most important part of the story. He loved himself no more, no less than all the other monks. Because he cared for himself as much as all the other monk. No more, no less. He just could not choose. And I've mentioned that story because even in Christianity, one of the great sayings of Jesus is to love your neighbor as yourself, not more than yourself, so not less than yourself. To love your neighbor as yourself means to love yourself as your neighbor. No more, no less. Absolutely. Equally. And why is it that when I tell this story in modern countries, it's not just here in Australia? Tell a story in England, in the United States, in Asia. Why is it that people always say, I think he sacrificed himself? It shows you have a lesser regard for yourself than you do for other people. Still, we don't care enough about herself, which means one of the reasons why we don't have enough happiness, health and success, which we should have by caring for yourself is not the expense of other people. It's actually helps other people and contributes to human happiness. So what happened that my head man went and told the the the leader of the band of robbers, I'm sorry, I cannot make a decision because I love all the monks. Exactly equal. No more, no less, as I love myself as well. And when he explained why, and this is actually based on a true story, it's changed quite a lot from the story. But it's based on a true story of Adi. And the result of him telling that that all the thieves were so impressed and inspired that half of the thieves gave up their robbing and got proper jobs in the village. And the other half of the thieves, including the robber head robber, became monks. What a lovely ending to the story. And that's actually what it said in the the ending to Adi mutineers, when he was actually, uh, uh, taken in by the thieves and was, uh, threatened with death. So you can actually see. Just why we tell this story is that we don't care enough about ourselves. So for your 2009 resolution, how about resolve to care about yourself? No more, no less than all the other beings in this world, not at the expense of others, but give yourself and even share. So what does that mean? What that means is, just as you would forgive others when they do silly thing, why can't you forgive yourself? Why is it when somebody else makes a mistake? I say forget it. Don't worry about it. When you do the same thing yourself, you feel guilty. You feel you need punishment and thereby sacrifice your own happiness. Why can't you really treat other people and yourself exactly the same way? You don't get angry at other people. You don't get angry at yourself as well. Every time you do a stupid thing, every time you make a mistake, just let it go. Don't make a big thing of it. Forgive yourself. If you can do that. It's called caring for yourself. And this is one of the sayings about anyone who acknowledges their faults. That's the first thing you've got to do, not hide it. I say, didn't make a mistake. Acknowledge it. Number two, forgive it. McGinnis means loving yourself enough to trust yourself that you'll learn from that mistake, which is actually the third stage to learn from it. The old AFL Code of Knowledge. Forgive. And that's all we really need to do. And the Buddha actually said that is growth in the spiritual path. That's how you actually do become better people. That's how your falls disappear. Not through punishment by acknowledging, but giving and learning. So this is actually how we do live ourselves, how we care for ourselves. We care enough to acknowledge what we've done, to give it, learn and move on. What a beautiful people you would be if you could do that. So 2008 has gone past. So all the faults which have happened acknowledge the stupid things you've done, the silly things which have happened and not written. Now forgive them and learn from them. That is called caring about yourself, and that is called growing. And this is actually what we mean by how to care for yourself. So you can actually get to be more peaceful, happy, successful human beings in life. This is your New Year's resolution. The goal. And if you care for yourself that way, it's not about changing yourself. Just acknowledging, forgiving and learning. Because most people think all people, they want to grow. They don't want to stagnate in life, whether it's in your workplace, whether it's your home and your religion or whatever you want to do. We all want to grow, become better human beings. And I think it is inherent in all human being, but it's acquiring more knowledge, more happiness, more experience. If this experience is going to bring you more happiness, more peace, more wisdom, especially peace, peace of mind is a wonderful goal to be able to achieve. But our goal should be those things. I say that those are the most important goals in life. You know what I call that? Spiritual capital. Sure enough, like the stock market and stuff goes up and goes, nah, you don't have to worry about that. That's material capital. There's something which is also really important social capital and spiritual capital. And the talks which I was giving when I was overseas a couple of weeks ago, was all about. Yeah, I mean, maybe material capital might go down, but this is more than that to life, more than the stock market. The other thing, which is your social capital, your social capital is your, you know, your husband, your wife, your kids, your parents, your uncles, your aunts, your people who you grow up with, your friends, as well as your social capital. If you care for your social capital, very often economic problems don't really affect you. Even if you lose your job, you've got enough friends, enough, um, uh, relations to give you your safety net. This in ancient times before we had pensions and Medicare is. Your family and friends will look after you in times of difficulty. And that was always the basic underlying system of safety nets in our societies. Are your friends and relations. And if we can actually go back into that pensions, that would be wonderful. If they're not there. It's not that important. We've got our friends and relations to keep us together in difficult times. This is the social safety net, what we call social capital, and also the spiritual safety net. And that spiritual safety net, you know as well. Things come and go. You get an understanding of wisdom about life. Stock markets go down. Then they go up again. And they get some difficulties in life, which we all go through from time to time. And then they sort of disappear. And then you get your highs in life and then they disappear again. You have to go back down the bottom again. It's the cycle of existence, the ups and downs of life. When we got the spiritual capital, the spiritual understanding like knowing how to care for ourselves and how to care for other people, then that spiritual capital is far more important than the material capital that keeps us together. Do you know times of difficulty? There are some people who are spiritually poor. They're the ones who commit suicide. They're the ones who go crazy. They're the ones who get into drugs and, you know, can't stay with another human being. The relationships all fall apart for those who have got very strong spiritual capital, because that's what they've built. They've cared for themselves. They've grown in peace and kindness and friendliness. They've got great spiritual capital. They've got nothing to be afraid of because that is really what's going to be your feather bed, even if you've got no money, if you have friends and you're a very rich person, despite that wealthy person who had no friend, she was the one I was concerned about. Some of the poor people I know who got lots of friends. They're very happy. Those people who have a great sense of self-worth, a peace with themselves, doesn't matter. What if they lose their job? They can find another one because they got this great sense of self, uh, being at peace with their self self-confidence, if you like. You know what? It's always like that. Sometimes people lose their job. They've got no spiritual capital. They lose their self-esteem as well. They think they're hopeless. They're terrible. They've lost their job. They're on the the the dust heap of life. If you've got the spiritual capital, you know, this is just part of life. It comes and goes. If you've got the spiritual capital, then you can always pick yourself up and just go and seek another job. If you come across as self-confident and you've got this incredible sense of inner strength and of course you get employed, but it's a spiritual capital as well as a social capital. These are the things which are really important. So the job of setting a goal are good goals, useful goals, purposeful goals is not just to build up the sense of caring for other people and caring for yourself, but to build up your social capital and your spiritual capital. And if you can do that, then the ups and downs of the market, the difficulties in the workforce and other things which happen to you in life, old age and sickness, you can literally take that in your stride. This is like monks do. I got no money. Travel all over the world. You can do this because you've got lots and lots of friends. And I tell people when I go over to Malaysia last week, I go into Malaysia. Actually, I did get sick. I ate something which was wrong. It was actually very, very exciting because I vomited just after giving a talk. Finished the talk. I thought it was on the video. Make a nice video. So my spiritual capital is that I never have to take any health insurance wherever I go, because I had no health insurance when I was in Malaysia a couple of weeks. As soon as I got sick, how many doctors and other people had so many medicines the next day? Are you going to take this out? I started getting sick. Take this. Look, I'm already over. It was only just something I ate. Nothing's sort of terminal. But you get so many people look after you. That's actually why it's a month. If I ever do feel a bit sick, I really hide it. I try and sort of. Don't let anybody know if I did, though. If I copy, you get sort of about 10 or 11 boxes of cough medicine the next morning. And the trouble is, everybody says, I brought this specially for you at your pump. You will drink it, won't you? And they won't go until I say yes. The trouble with a man. If I say yes, I have to keep those promises. But sometimes if I'm sick, sometimes, given so many of my medicine. And when I've eaten or drank all that medicine, then I'm really sick. But anyway, it's just a small sort of little, um. Uh, stomach irritation. And once I was okay. But that's what happens sometimes. You don't need even health insurance as a mark, because you've got social and spiritual capital, which is far more important. So to sum up the talk this evening on New Year's Eve, resolutions make some resolutions, set some goals, set some really useful goals. Goals with number one are achievable and are really worthwhile. Forget about winning a lottery. Forget about the big house. Instead, have the beautiful family values. Forget about sort of getting rid of the cancer. Yeah, but instead care for the people you know and love. Don't try and change them. If somebody gets angry at you. Don't get angry back. Don't find another way of settling the problem, especially in your Relationships. Husbands and wives. There's other ways of dealing with the problems rather than just shouting at each other. So care for the person you're committed to and also care for yourself as well. You can't as well, but make your New Year's resolution see which ways you can care for yourself another being. That's something you can always do. Can't always change them. Heal them. You can always care for them like a doctor can. And if you can do things like that, you understand what we mean by building spiritual capital and social capital in turbulent economic times. That's something which you can do and which you know is worthwhile and will bring you the security and safety which money promised you but never supplied. That's how to set worthwhile goal Buddhist Goals for 2009. Thank you.