Rituals - How and Why?

Rituals – How and Why?

Transcription

So this evening's talk as usual. I come to Friday night with so many people about to listen to a talk, having no idea what I shall talk about until someone suggests something. And it's wonderful when people suggest something just beforehand, because that makes the talk relevant. And somebody who is just coming for the first few weeks to this centre wants to know about all this chanting and the bowing and all this other sort of stuff. Number one, what am I supposed to do? And number two, why? So today we're going to be giving a talk on some of the rituals which we do here and why we do them. Because this is not just like a how to, you know, be a Buddhist or how to be sort of, you know, a really good Buddhist. And just this on the outside knowing all the rituals and stuff. Even though that sometimes I thought we could have some competitions, like a bowling competition. I was wondering, well, even, you know, we're having our opening up our retreat center on the 10th of April. It's my sort of. My character is always just to be a little bit on the edge. And so I thought we could actually raise a bit more money for our retreat center by having. We're having a procession from the monastery to the retreat center, only one kilometer. We're all walking from one place to another, but just to raise a bit of money. We could have the monks and nuns having a race and putting bets on actually, who would win. You could give some of the senior monks, because of their age, a handicap, just, you know, give them a few, a few tens of meters start and I'll show you could raise a lot of money. I'm making a book on who would win. But the rituals of Buddhism. So we can understand what we're supposed to do here. But the most important thing is why we do these things. For example, you know, why do we bow? And what's it really for? Because you see all these Buddhist bowing all the time. We're famous for our bowing. The reason why Buddhist bow is because it exercises your tummy muscles if you don't get so fat. It didn't work for me. But it's not just exercising your tummy muscles. It's also just a way of paying respect to something. Because when you bow your heads going down and that thing is above you. It's like because physically it's above you. It's actually a very deep seated feeling of respecting what you put higher than you, higher than your own head is an object of worship and respect. So we do a bow to the Buddha statue or to actually do three pairs sometimes. And people say, well, what do you actually bow for? What are you doing that it's putting yourself low. So that's high. So it's an act of respect, but you're not disrespecting like a statue because that's just a lump of metal. It's got no sort of like spirit inside watching you and making sure you behave. It's just a metal statue, that's all. But it's what it represents. And that's what you bow to. What a Buddha statue represents for you. And to me, when I bow to Buddha statue, I remember three things. I bow to each one three times. And those three things I the lady who asked it earlier, I just was a bit tired and not clear. The three things I found to have virtue. First of all, peace. And sometimes compassion. Sometimes wisdom. I always join those two together because if you're wise, you're kind. If you're if you're kind, your wise are to go together. So I bow three times to virtue, peace, wisdom and compassion. Now, why do I do that? Because when I bow first time to virtue, I'm saying I really worship, I think virtue, goodness, morality, not harming other people, not harming yourself is a really important thing in this world. When I bow first time, I'm remembering the importance of, like, virtuous living, kind, harmless living. And when I do that, because I'm remembering it, it reinforces the virtuous practice in my life. And even as a monk, sometimes you can say silly things and harm somebody or harm some animal, even if you are not really intending to. Especially sometimes when it rains here, the back path can be a bit dark, and if you're not careful, you can tread on a snail and kill it. So even though it's unintentional, it's still a little bit of carelessness. So when I bow to virtue, I'm making sure that, you know, I'm going to be really careful not to harm beings in this world and not to harm myself either. By doing stupid things. I bow to virtue. That's my first thing, and the second thing I bow to. It's just so easy to bow to peace. Peace is just. I've had such a wonderful time in my life as a monk, having the peaceful moments, deep peaceful moments, and living in a peaceful place like our monasteries. Even again, that retreat center which I have been building now, when all the builders go, it's just a quiet place in the hills, just in Serpentine Road. But there's hardly any cars passed by that road, and I. So it's such a quiet place. And peace is number one. So beautiful. It's obviously so therapeutic. Just giving yourself moments of peace heals so much illness of the body and so much pain in the heart. And sometimes just being peaceful. Remember this the building inspector. Serpentine, Gerudo. Shire. And when he retired, he was there for many years. When he retired, he came up to see me and said, I thought I'd let you know that all these years I was working as a building inspector in this council. Whenever I had stress in the office, I'd just get in my car and come to your monastery. I never told you about this. I just come and just park in the carpark and just relax because the place was so peaceful. I was so happy that he wasn't a Buddhist. All he did was to come and worship the peace of the place and use it to heal the stress of his busy job. That's actually what we worship. Peace. And we also worship this beautiful thing called compassion and wisdom. The kindness is so important in life, but you can never be kind enough. Last year in one of the calendars, I had one of my quotes. How many times should you forgive someone who has hurt you, or cheated you or deceived you? Always one more time. That's the kindness which is so beautiful in this life. Whenever you've had moments of cruelty or hurt, or it just makes life so mean and miserable and painful and dispiriting and discouraging. But every time you see an act of compassion and kindness, it just just raises one's spirits. Gives hope in life. It doesn't matter about the economy's going down or climate change. Global warming. Yeah, those are depressing. But what to me is most depressing in life is when people aren't kind to each other. With all the difficulties and problems in life. His acts of kindness just add the beauty of life and make life worthwhile. I worship kindness, I worship compassion as when I bow down and bow down to compassion, remembering how important it is in my life so that I can do more compassion and of course, wisdom. Understanding. That's not a wisdom by being told what to believe. And that's not what wisdom means. Wisdom is hiding out in your heart, in your experience of life is what truth is, what happiness is, and what the right thing to do is. So often when people come to ask me these questions about what they should do with a relationship or job, or even big questions like no abortions. A lot of times people know what to do. They feel it inside. They've got their inner wisdom. They can only trust it and take away all the fear which we have because we believe what other people tell us or, you know, maybe suspect they may be right. This may be wrong, this may be terrible. So when we get rid of all that fear and we feel inside our heart, we know what's right. We know what's good. That's actually the wisdom which every human being has. My job as a teacher is not actually to tell you what wisdom is, but to help you find your own wisdom and to encourage you to believe in that wisdom, the wisdom which you have in your own heart right now. And by encouraging you in that wisdom, you grow strong and independent of all these other ideas and opinions which float in the world about what's right and what's wrong. You know it for yourself and you feel it for yourself. And that's actually a person maturing as they understand what wisdom is and they grow in wisdom. And wisdom is what protects you in life. It stops you hurting yourself and hurting others. So when I bow to Buddha statue, that's what I bow down to. Which means that every time I bow down, I remember those things. I'm mindful of them. I recall them so they go stronger and stronger in my life. And that's what we mean by the worshipping of a Buddha statue. Again, it's only a lump of grass, or maybe a wood or stone. It's not a big thing. It's what it represents is most important. Which is why when people blow up Buddha statues, we don't go to war. When someone blows up a Buddha statue. What do we do when the Taliban blow up to Buddha statues? Who made 100 more that week? So we came out in the end. We got profit and it doesn't matter. Sometimes people tell me. What about if you have blisters? Actually, when I was in Indonesia, in Jakarta, they opened up a Buddha bar. It was like a franchise. This, this, our Buddha Bar is a franchise which is for many countries in the world, which sells alcohol. Like a pub owner, they call it Buddha Bar. And for their other decoration, a Buddha statue is everywhere. And so when I was in Indonesia a month ago, I said, what should we do? This is sacrilege. They're destroying Buddhism by having Buddha bars, you know, in Jakarta and people going out there getting drunk and don't know what they do in front of the Buddha. And so what I was suggesting, because we might get on these aircraft and go this overnight flights, they give you these little eye shades. So we'll go in there and put the eye shades over the Buddha statue so I can't see what's going on. It is a joke. They say that if you get upset and angry about the Buddha back then, you're destroying Buddhism. But just having a Buddha statue, even a pub or a bar that doesn't destroy Buddhism. In fact, who knows, just seeing a peaceful person there, a peace, a peaceful representation might remind some of those people in the bar not to drink too much. And maybe be kinder to one another, a bit more peaceful to one another. Because that's what the symbol is. I don't know how many of you know this, but even the the great statesman in the Second World War, Winston Churchill, had a Buddha statue by his bed every night during that war. The reason we found out this that many of you know, one of the monks was here many years at Dharma. He was visiting England one day, and he was supposed to be taken to a castle, but the castle was closed, and so his host didn't know what to do with him. And it was actually close by, was the home of Winston Churchill, which was the Chartwell. Let's go and see his home, which was like a museum now. And as soon as I went in the door and paid their money, there was a painting of a Buddha statue right at the entrance. Apparently there was a Burmese style Buddha statue. So I said, what's this doing here? And it's actually painted by Winston Churchill. And the story was that that was the statue he had by his bedside throughout the Second World War. To bring him a sense of peace in that very difficult, stressful time. And I know many people have Buddha statues in their gardens and, you know, they may have barbecues there. They may have parties and get drunk in there. Who knows what they're doing there. But at least they feel a bit of peace there. Once I went to a give a talk at All Saints School that's over in Riverton somewhere. Bull Creek somewhere. And after the talk, the principal said, I'll come and have a chat and have a cup of tea in my office. And I went into the office of this Christian school. There's a Buddha statue on this guy's desk. There was no crucifixes. There was no no icons of Christianity there. Just a Buddha statue on his desk. And I asked, what have you got that therefore? He said, it brings me peace. It's a symbol. That person was worshipping. And this is actually why we bow. Worship. There's nothing wrong with worship. The word means seeing worth in something, seeing something, value in it. Worship. That's what the English word means. Are we bow to something because we find worth in it. It's something which can inspire us and encourage us in things like virtue, peace, wisdom, and compassion. So that's why we bow. And if somebody bows and they try and get it over and done with as quick as possible so they can leave, or if they just, you know, bowing their not knowing what the hell they're doing. And that's not Buddhism at all. That's being stupid. And this is one of the nice things about the Buddhism which I learned there was none of these rituals were there without a meaning. And you could ask, you know, your teacher or ask them. I can never be able to explain it why we do these things, what the purpose was. And that made the whole thing sort of interesting, meaningful. And the whole thing was like a practice which made you more mindful, more alert, more peaceful, more wise, more compassionate, more spiritual, and made you grow. So that's about bowing and the the images of the Buddha, why we have so many Buddha statues all around. Just the reminders of peacefulness would be great if we can have more of these. Last Saturday I went to an opening of another temple in Cannington. It's great having more Buddhist statues with no more temples around. And in my talk, which I gave a little talk now, I told all the politicians and mayors and stuff, you know, because their master had a dream as a Hong Kong temple and their dream was having one of his temples here in Australia, and he made it in Perth. And so I said about my dream might have been a long time ago. That one day in the city of Perth would have more Buddhist temples than pubs. And I said, now I got one temple closer to my dream. Now why do I say that? It's just so we can have more places of peace, more symbols of compassion, more places of wise virtue, not where you're forced to be virtuous, but it comes from within and spreads out from you to other people. What a wonderful thing that would be in our city. Who knows, one day my dream may come true. I know Martin Luther had a dream. That's my dream. Whatever was on purpose. But we have this also. You know, before we came, monks came in here. We had some chanting and people asking, what do we do? The chanting for now, hopefully that, you know, if you do any chanting, you actually read what you're chanting and you don't don't just say it just because it's a ritual. I know that perhaps of all the chants which Buddhists do, is that Tibetan chant on mani padme hum chant. And do you know what that means? So many people chant it. I haven't got a clue what it means. It means number one. Oh, money. Pay my home, please. That's the old joke. But do you know what it really means? Because sometimes people don't know what it means and they just chant it. You know, just like sort of parrots, you know, stupid people. So where we have all the chants, which we do here, please actually get the book so you know what you're chanting. And of course, some of these chants we do in English so people understand what they're supposed to be chanting. And those English chants are beautiful. They have like the meter suits. Just like a mother loves her only child. They will sacrifice the life for that child for this as well. And that's how we love other people. That's how we aspire to have this beautiful compassion. Just like you love your child. So you love your husband. Or your wife. Sometimes I wonder this is really strange. I I've noticed this before. Your child. Where does it come from? Is being comes into your womb and out into your life. And you don't choose. Maybe in a few years time you don't choose a gender. You don't know what it's going to be. Intelligent or stupid. You don't know whether it's going to be, you know, really a good kid or a bad kid. It really is the biggest lottery of your life, having a child and you're stuck with it. It comes from the previous lives, and those people have had children. Never told me when this person, this being comes out, it's not a new person. It's all they feel. It's got character. It's been around a long time. They feel it's a very, very mature being. But just in a in a new body and a small helpless body is come with characters, come with a past. It has history and there it is in your life. You don't choose it, you don't know what you get. But you will love that child unconditionally I am. That's your son. That's your daughter. And even if they're good, they're bad. With all their faults, you will always love them. Now, your partner in life, you actually choose them. And you actually do a lot of research before you commit. You check them out on many evenings during the daytime as well. And these days, as I say, you always do a test drive many times before you put those rings on. And with all of that careful choice, in fact, you spend more time, more consideration, choosing your partner than you do choosing your car. But why, with all of that careful choice? You can't love your partner unconditionally like you love your child. Why? Fascinating. This the love of our child is a different level. Unconditional love to our partner is always when most people with strings attached. However, if you stay together long enough, maybe those things can be untied and loosened and you can have that beautiful, unconditional love. The same way you love your children so you can love your partner. What a wonderful thing that would be. And that's why we chant, to remind ourselves of what real love is, so that we don't make too many mistakes in life. So the chanting is there as a message for us. Where the chanting started from is when you know, we'd have these great teachings and because the monks would not have. There weren't any books in those days, and because there were no CDs and iPods and internet, the only way you could access those things is remembering them. So the monks would actually remember them by charging them again and again and again. So that became a memorized word for word. And then that was their books, their memory. And that's where the chanting came from. And of course, some of those chanting, they did have power. Because I had power to inspire and had power to reveal the truth. And that's where they got the great energy. In these days, sometimes the chanting is just ritual. Sometimes I joke this actually there's going to be a marriage here tomorrow when the people get married. We chant sometimes in party they don't know what we're chanting. We could be chanting like the funeral chants during their marriage. That we would do that except by mistake. And they would. You wouldn't know at all, would you? Ever do that? But it's great if we understand what the chanting is. But it does have power because it can inspire us. And a good example of that, some of the true stories of the power of chanting preserve this monk attire. Monk still alive. He was visiting our monastery in California a few years ago, and one of the monks when my fellow monks, I grew up with him in Thailand. He told me this story when he met this monk at the airport in San Francisco. There's two strange things. I know the person who asked me the story. She said she was an Ansett flight attendant before. She loved this story because when he arrived at the airport, this monk's bag with bags, we have the monk who was receiving him. The American monk was fiddling with his bag. The zip was stuck. So as soon as this time I came out of the airport, international flight from Thailand in San Francisco airport, he said, oh, you know, something wrong with your seat? He said, yeah, it's stuck. He said, oh, I can fix that. He opened up his robe and took out a pair of pliers and a screwdriver, and he said, where do you get those from? I'll just add my jacket underneath. He said, do you take that on the plane with you? Said, yeah, of course. And he opened up. He had about three knives, two screwdrivers, big knives. How can you take that on an international flight? What about homeland Security and all this? He said it's very easy. He said whenever I go through the scanner, I just meditate and it never goes off. But don't worry if you're flying because only great monks could do that. There is no way they can do that. But also, the receiving monks check this monk's passport. And he couldn't believe that in this Thai forest monks passport, there was a diplomatic visa to enter the United States for the rest of this monk's life with no expiry date. And this American monk said, how on earth can you just a simple Thai forest monk, get such a visa? Diplomatic the rest of your life. And this time monk told the story. It was later checked out to be true and of course, had a passport. No, a piece of paper in in his passport to show it was a real visa. What had happened a few years previously in Houston, Texas, and the headquarters of the National Aeronautics and space agency, NASA. They were installing a new mainframe computer costing many hundreds of millions of dollars. This was going to be the number cruncher which ran the whole of NASA. When they had installed it, they couldn't boot it up. They couldn't make it work. You know, you know, your computer sometimes really gives you a pain. But this was NASA. And every day, every hour that computer was down was costing them hundreds of thousands of dollars. So they got the best experts from throughout North America. Blow the business class straight away to try and fix up the problem. But no one could fix the problem. They couldn't make it work. Now one of the engineers, one of the IT experts, tried to fix it up, happened to be a Thai man, and he noted that we had all the best experts in the whole of us, from all the great universities, and they couldn't fix the problem. So he said, perhaps it couldn't be. Supernatural. Perhaps there's something weird going on. He said, if it is, I know the very monk who could fix that. He was actually visiting the Thai Temple in Houston at the time. So, you know, monks are very cheap. We don't have to fly business class or get fees. We just give you a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate and you do anything. So nothing to lose. In fact, the monk has invited this monk into the mainframe computer room in NASA, and all he did was do a bit of chanting, and he sat meditation. And after he came out of meditation, the computer worked perfectly. True story. And they were so impressed and so thankful that they used their connections to get this monk a diplomatic visa, so he didn't have to have trouble with security for the rest of his life. Also, in case their computer failed, they can get him in quickly. Those are the power of chanting. Sometimes this chanting has got something powerful to it. That's actually why, you know, as Buddhist monks, we also have told you this. We do actually, lots of ghost busting. And it's really true that this is my experience and many other people's experience. If you have a ghost. The Buddhist chants work the most powerfully. Now we're the top. We have to try the Christian priests and Muslims or whatever Hindus. If it doesn't work, the Buddhist ones guarantee money back. For example, just one of the great stories of the chief priests of Malaysia. And in case freedom. Ananda, who died lots of long ago. And I was giving a talk at ghosts at his temple once, and he told me this great story is one of the the the neighboring houses. I think it was efficient person in the house. This was in Kuala Lumpur, just in Brickfields, in the center of the Indian quarter of Kuala Lumpur. And there was a haunting. So a very bad ghost there. So we went there, did some chanting and the ghost disappeared. Never bothered the house again. The trouble was, though, all the neighbors complained because the ghost had just gone next door. So he had to go, he said, after he had to go to all these houses one by one to make sure the ghost went a long way away, not just next door. But one of the reasons, actually, the monks abode in the monastery also got very, very good ghost ghost busting chants. Another reason why. The reason why is that? Listen to us chants. Sometimes our chanting is so bad that no self-respecting ghost can stand it. And they run a mile. Oh, not those building yard. Starting again. I can't stand this. But now the real reason why we chant. That's just jokes about chanting this again. Just to remind us of of the teachings of the Buddha. Because some of the chants we do, some of the ones I love when I chant, I know exactly what these chants mean, and they're really, really inspiring. And sometimes you chant and you pause for a while while you reflect on these teachings of the Buddha. And they're very, very. A very profound. And that's why sometimes I sound. I can cry when I shout, that is so inspiring. So when we do chanting, please don't chant unless you know what it means. Otherwise you know, what are you doing? Or it's just empty ritual. And that's not what Buddhism is all about. So we do these chanting. You know, sometimes, sometimes you see people actually lighting Joss sticks and actually lighting candles. We always have some chopsticks or candles. And what are they for? We do those. This is a tradition of actually offering, again, worship with candles, incense and sometimes flowers. Fair enough, because now they. The candles are always a symbol of wisdom, right? Light shows the way in the darkness. The incense was actually supposed to be purifying the place. Now, if you can imagine people maybe 2500 years ago when they didn't have hot showers or soap or deodorant, you can imagine that incense, almost anything would purify the air. So it's always considered to be like a purification. And also the can. The flowers were also liking a beautiful scent. A beautiful thing to offer to people just like you might offer. I hope no flowers to you know your your wife on sort of, uh, on her birthday, you know, or your girlfriend, you know, to sort of turn her on. And I remember just, you know, there's many times offering flowers to my girlfriends, but now people offer flowers to me. It's karma. That's how it works out. But the reason we offer our beautiful gifts is just a gesture. But also, we remember those flowers are just beautiful for a few days and they fade away. Right now I use adolescence. We are very beautiful and then we become ugly again. So just like flowers, this is the way of things. Nothing can stop that. So we just use it as a reflection. But. There's one time, and this is typical of Buddhism. This is a straight from the word of the Buddha at the end of the Buddha's life. He was saying all his people were offering him all these things like incense and flowers and stuff. He said, look, that's not how you really worship a Buddha, or you pay respect to a Buddha to the real way you worship. A Buddha is practicing what he taught you to do, actually following those teachings. That's the best way you can pay worship to a Buddha or to any teacher, or say to your parent, I know sometimes we say, do we really respect our parents? What is respecting your parent really mean anyway? It doesn't mean just giving them flowers and incense or giving them a birthday card, you know, or Christmas card whenever Mother's Day or Father's Day or whatever. Because as a parent, what do you want of your children? What would make you most happy? It's obviously your child, you know, being peaceful and happy, a good kid, having a wonderful life. That's what makes you happy. That's how we worship our parents or our teachers. By following their example, maybe following the tradition if we possibly can, or even doing better than what they did. So they're proud and happy with us. I'm a teacher. I've taught for many years. How can you say thank you to me? By being peaceful, happy, wonderful, virtuous people? And of course, that makes me the happiest of all. I remember just all the monks I teach at the monastery so they can say thank you, but the only way they can really say thank you for being peaceful, good, wonderful monks. What I really enjoy as a teacher is seeing these little monks who you trained your ordained growing up, and then when they give their first talk and sometimes you listen to their talks, nothing makes you happier as a senior man and seeing one of your monks or nuns give their first thought and doing such a wonderful job that really inspires me and makes me very happy. That's the way they pay respect to me. That's what the Buddha is saying. How you respect another person, how you respect your husband, how you respect your wife, how you respect your parents or your your friends, your teachers. You respect them by what you do and what you say and how you behave in such a way which brings them inspiration and happiness. So we have the candles and the incense, but that's just the lower part of respect. The real respect is what you do and what you say and how you behave. And sometimes you do that out of love for your teacher or your parents. Went to another funeral this afternoon and one of the best funeral services. One of the memorable ones I went to. I was in Armadale a year or two ago that night using background music for my talk. One of the wonderful things which I funerals, which I went to, uh, person I known for some time had died. I did a funeral for his wife, and I did his funeral and his children and had this family feud for years. And the two sisters had separated and never spoke to each other, found each other, send any letters because it was their father's funeral. They came and he could see at the beginning of the service notice, very tense in each other's presence. They just had to go to his dad's funeral. But to in a funeral service, you could see them soften. And after the softening, I did a ceremony with another Buddhist ceremony. The ceremony of forgiveness. I was really just saying sorry to your father. No. For anything which you done by body, spirit or mind. It takes no unintentional. During his life, we've always got some unfinished business. But it touched their hearts, both of them. And they reconciled as well. And they said, thank you for that service. And thank you for bringing us together. And so don't thank me. Thank your father, because I did that out of respect that I. Forgive the past and let go all of that terrible things that are separated two siblings and come together again. It's a wonderful thing to be part of having a ceremony which had a meaning and had a positive effect afterwards. What actually is that? Forgiveness. This used to be so common. When I was in Thailand. We used to have the Thai New Year, which is coming up soon, April 13th, 40th and 15th, which is the same as a new year in Sri Lanka, in Burma, in Laos as an Indian New Year. And at those days where I lived in the northeast of Thailand, the husband and wife would always come together that day. One of them would give a symbolic gift to the other and say to them, oh, darling, if there's anything I've done in the past 12 months, by body, by speech or mind, a physical act or a bad speech, or even a thought which has hurt or offended you, cause you pain, I sincerely ask for forgiveness of something I didn't do, which I should have done. Intentional. Unintentional. I ask your forgiveness and they forgive. Now, if there's anything which I have done by body speech of mine or I didn't do, which I should have done. Intentional, unintentional. Which has hurt you. Of course you pay. I ask your forgiveness that they do it with sincerity. You always give forgiveness when it's requested. It's a beautiful ceremony, which means at the end of every year, we wipe the slate clean with all these stupid, silly things which we do, which we can keep too long inside of us. The point where it eats at our happiness and even at our health. And that was done once a year, and I've seen it even in monasteries especially. I remember once seeing these two young ones having a fierce argument with each other. And I noticed the abbot never intervened. He let them go for it, and they were shouting at each other. And then the abbot said, okay, enough now ask forgiveness of each other. And they did. It was a beautiful okay. They could let out steam, you know, just express, you know, some terrible thing which they felt about each other. Okay. Now stop. And the two of them just ask forgiveness of one another. And it was done. It was real. They did actually say sorry, and they meant it. And so they went away afterwards as friends. That forgiveness is very, very powerful. Especially if you understand how powerful it is and do it with 100% truthfulness, with sincerity. It works. Just like many people, I just went to a talk last Tuesday in Curtin University. No, Kevin Rudd's sorry. He moved a lot of people simply because it had a ring of sincerity about it. That forgiveness ceremony is pretty useful. We usually do it at funeral services if we've got time, because I remember when my father died. I felt a little bit guilty. And the only reason I felt guilty was I had an unfinished business. The unfinished business was I was an adolescent. He died when I was 16 and I was an adolescent. And when you were an adolescent or a boy growing up, you're competing. You're fighting with your father. You just. That's what boys do to compete. And so the way I competed with my father, every time he put his didn't have CDs in those days, records. He loved Frank Sinatra, who played Frank Sinatra record. And on my record player, I played Jimi Hendrix. And Jimi Hendrix was much louder than Frank Sinatra that I was with. And that was just a stupid, selfish thing, which I did. And when he died, I felt so guilty about that because I couldn't say sorry. Now later on, I will learn to sum up. Doesn't matter if they've died, you can still say, sorry, I did the forgiveness ceremony. Think of my father saying that whatever I've done in my body, speech in my head. Especially all those times I've played Jimi Hendrix at full volume. I sincerely ask for forgiveness. And I can imagine what my father would say. Of course it doesn't matter. I just did what you were up to. Didn't matter. And the whole guilt disappeared. We're done. That forgiveness ceremony. We say girls who've had abortions, but sometimes there's a lot of pain left. So you can come to this temple here. If you're like me, when no one's around. Just bow to the Buddha statue, the virtues of peace, wisdom, compassion and then say, what have I done by body speech of mind? Especially that abortion? I understand. All that pain, the melt away and the power of forgiveness. There's nothing terribly wrong with that. It's just what we make of it. And sometimes the forgiveness ceremony lessens all of that. It abandons it and lets it go. And that's why we do ceremonies and rituals. Because it makes the the event much more powerful. It's okay to say let go. Okay to say I forgive. If you make a ceremony out of it, it's more effective and powerful. So. Right. Marriage. Yeah. You can just say, okay, I'm going to live with you. But they're going through a ceremony in front of all your friends and relations makes it far more powerful. There's some of the other ceremonies we do to be marriages, as well as a marriage here tomorrow afternoon. If you want to see a Buddhist marriage, come tomorrow afternoon, if you wish, and you find one of the things you see in a Buddhist marriage is we have holy water and we have holy waters. Didn't start with Christianity. We started many of these things in Buddhism, but we forgot to get the patent before we all stole it. It's a strange thing with holy water now. Usually only use it to sod on big occasions like, you know, the Waste Act ceremony or New Year's ceremony. If you come here, you know, see me sprinkling holy water over everybody. But, you know, an interesting thing about holy water. And I couldn't believe this. You know, when I first found out, because I go travelling a lot, you know, actually, one day I actually read, you know, the fall of, you know what? You're kind of what you're allowed to bring into Australia and what you're not allowed to begin. And sometimes we don't even read that. But I read it one day, and I couldn't believe one of the things you are not allowed to bring into this country from overseas is holy water. It's true. You go and check someone who works in customs. You can't bring holy water into Australia. And I can understand why. Until somebody told me this story. I'm not sure if this is the real reason, but it could explain it because there was this guy coming in to Perth Airport a few years ago. And, you know, this was when, you know, they weren't checking when they actually did have a green shower and don't have a green cell. Not anymore. But anyway, that he went through the green channel and, you know, the customs agents always checks a few people, you know, just on random. He was one of the ones who got checks that opened his suitcases and reached underneath his snow jumpers and shirts and under the bottom of his suitcase, two bottles of whiskey. He didn't declare. So the customs man said, sir, what's this? And thinking quickly, he said, look, I'm a Catholic. I've just been to the holy city of Lourdes in France. This is holy water. It's holy water, you know, from France. Can I go now? Customs officials are not known to believe people that easily. So he said, I'm going to open it up first of all. And he said, first of all, look at the label. It's got Johnnie Walker on the outside. He said, well, you know, you've got to put in something. It just happened to have two empty bottles. I put it in there. Okay, can I go? Said no. So let's open it up and smell it. They opened it up and smelled it. They gave it to this man. Said, you smell it, sir? It's not water, it's whiskey. The man smelt. He said. My goodness, you're right. Another miracle. Which is why they don't allow holy water into us. It is holy water on people. One of the reasons I do it, especially in a marriage. And Dennis knows this because I do. He's a marriage celebrant is, you know, you've seen people getting married and a husband comes in a nice suit and the woman comes usually wearing well. Another interesting thing. You know why a woman wears white at her wedding? Because white is a symbol of purity. It shows she's lived a very pure, chaste life. That's why she's supposed to wear white. So why does the groom always wear black? What does that signify of the behavior of men? But anyhow. She wears usually. And they keep doing this. And with so much makeup, you know, when they have their wedding and, you know, part of, like being a Buddhist is being, like, truthful, being real. But during the marriage ceremony, I always give the woman, especially lots and lots and lots of holy water until all the makeup starts washing out so he could find out who is really marrying. A young girl? Yes. A few days ago, a couple of days ago, she told me her boyfriend has never seen her without makeup. Be careful, you guys. If you come to me, you know. You soon find out who you marry. But we do this holy water. But I make sure when we do holy water blessings. And I explain why. And I say the holy water has got four symbols to it. First of all, like the holy water is, it is pure. You use water to wash your clothes, to wash your dishes, wash your body. So it has a symbol of cleanness. Purity. So I say that this symbolizes the purity of your commitment and vows together as a symbol of virtue. Clean living. Number two, water is always cool. That's why in the hot weather, we go to the swimming pool. We go to the beach or have a cool shower to cool off. It's also similar, being very cool. So you don't get angry at each other. So that's why I sprinkle you to cool you down. And I say, if that husband, if he ever gets really cranky, just put a few drops of water on it. He gets really mad. Pour the whole bottle over it. Cool it down a bit. Same with her. So it's a symbol of coolness. And it's also the symbol of of actually togetherness. Because have you noticed if any of Australia gets very dry, the wind can blow all the soil away. But the water binds the earth together the same way. If you know you're cooking somebody making a pastry, you add water to the the flour and the oil and it binds it together. Symbolically, water has always been like a binding agent, a symbol of harmony and togetherness, said Lasley. Obviously, the water is a symbol of prosperity because with water we have, you know, the crops, the trees, the flowers, the plants. So, so water has those four symbols and there's sort of a call of purity, coolness, harmony and prosperity. So I'm just reminding you of those things when we have the holy water. That's why we do these things. It actually works. Actually, I'm just remembering when I went to that ceremony last Saturday, I also told the politicians there because I had the politicians from the local community of Canning there. Now, sometimes people wonder about having a Buddhist monastery in your midst. Now, is it really appropriate for, you know, some of these areas and maybe Christians there? I get all this chance. You're going to make so much noise. I told them an interesting piece of scientific research, which I got from a journal some time ago. It was actually research was done in Taiwan. In Taiwan. Usually 8% of ducks lay an egg every day, currently an egg every day, but 8% of ducks will lay an egg once a day. When I played Buddhist chanting to these ducks. 10% laid an egg every day. So I told the mayor of Canning, who said, now you have a Buddhist temple here. Your your productivity will go up from 8% to 10%. You actually have an extra egg. So sometime be careful if you don't want to get pregnant. Too much Buddhist chanting. It makes. My eggs. Be careful. Anyway, so we have these symbols and this is actually why we use them. But remember, these are just symbols. It's the meaning which is most important. What is the container? And the last story about the Buddhist rituals. It's why if you don't do them, it doesn't really matter. It's just why you do that matters more than if you do them. Even if you don't do the bao right. It doesn't matter. It's where you're coming from in your heart. That's always the most important thing. It's the meaning of it. And the last story, you know, which is a common story. So not common. I've said it many times before. It was a brilliant story, though it is. Why? We didn't get upset when the Taliban blew up us with the statues. Why? We don't get upset if we have Buddha statues in in bars. Why we don't get upset if people don't mess around in Buddhist temples. And it was a story when, a few years ago, in the newspapers, they were recording that a US soldier of Guantanamo Bay had been accused of flushing a copy of the Koran down the toilet. And because it was such big news throughout the whole world, I don't know, it was the West Australian or the Australian newspaper, but somebody rang me at the monastery. They said they were doing a story about this event, and they were asking the leaders of all religions in Australia the same question. It was asking me how to grow as a Buddhist. What would you do if someone flushed a Buddhist holy book down the toilet? Were we protest? Would we have a demonstration? Would we be outside of Parliament with our placards and death to the people who flushed the Buddhist holy book down the toilet? Of course not. What I replied is that, sir, if somebody flushed a Buddhist holy book down my toilet, I would call a plumber. That took the journalist aback. I didn't see why no one else thought of that. Because, you know, you have to use the toilet afterwards. And we're very practical Buddhist monks. That's what I would do. But then I got serious, and I said, sir. You can flush as many Buddhist holy books as you like. Down the toilet you could actually laugh as many Buddha statues as you want. You burn the temples and you can kill the monks in the night. But I will never allow you to destroy Buddhism. I will never allow you to destroy peace, forgiveness, homelessness, compassion. I never allow you to flush that down. I made this wonderful distinction between what I call the container and the content. The Buddhist. Monks and their container. What they represent, what's inside of them? The contents. The virtue, the peace, the compassion, the wisdom. That is what's really important. And that is what is behind all the rituals or the ceremonies or the bowing, all the chanting, all the everything else we do. It's the contents, not the container. It's not the books. What's inside of them? What are those books? Say to love the neighbor as thyself. Thou shalt not kill. To be kind. To forgive. To be merciful. To be gentle. That's what we really remember whenever we do any ceremony. So if anybody ever. And if you're a devout Buddhist and they tell jokes about Buddhism, they try to upset you. Remember, if you get angry, then they destroy. If you remember peace, forgiveness, kindness, gentleness. And they never destroy the content with the most important and all the rituals and all the ceremonies and everything else we do in this temple are monasteries. We always remember the context. They can bow in weird ways. And I will never excommunicate you. But I say, wow, you've made my day. I've never seen anyone bow like that ever before. Thank you so much. That was maybe so. Maybe laugh so much or whatever you do. So it's why you do it where it's coming from. That's what's important. And if you understand that, you understand the source of all the rituals of Buddhism. It's what encourages virtue. What encourages meets what encourages wisdom and compassion. What makes people grow is more in peace, harmony and togetherness and prosperity. That's the meaning of all these people. So I've already run out of time. She'll go longer, but that gives you an understanding of some of the rituals we do here, but most importantly, why they're done. So thank you for listening. Very good. That's also why you put your hand up. Just a matter of respect. But why did you do that so beautifully? With a sense of respect. Okay, so has anyone got any comments or questions about this evening's talk about some of the rituals of Buddhism and why we do it, and more importantly, where it comes from inside? Yes. Yeah, it is true that sometimes it's difficult for people to forgive themselves, let alone to get other people. And the first step of forgiveness is always to see that something they're worth forgiving. You're not all bad. Is a tiny little piece of you worth saving. A little itsy bitsy piece of you, which is good and kind and wonderful. And then once you start to see that, you see it's not itsy bitsy anymore. It's amazing. The story in my book about the two bad bricks in the wall, the reason why that's the first story there was because it is very deep and very powerful. Why is it when I made a wall in Serpentine Monastery, two bricks were wrong. And I want to destroy that wall because those two bad bricks, I couldn't couldn't get them out of my mind every time I saw the wall. Those 240 bricks. There's only three months left. I'm just saying it quickly. When I was with somebody, they said that wall. What a beautiful wall. I said, are you blind? Can't you see those two bad bricks? I said, yes, but I can also say the 998 good bricks as well. As a first time, I could see anything other than my horse. I realized I had I was right, it was a good walk. But how many people are like that? You had a difficult thing in your life. Done 1 or 2 bad things. That's all. You see the two bad pics in your life? What happens next? You want to destroy the wall? You just need somebody to say this. Other bricks of your wall. You're more than those mistakes. If you see the whole picture, you realize you are worth saving. Your words. And that means you can forgive. Allow us to fix that. Forgiveness starts when you realize is something worthy of forgiving, but who your worst enemy is, whoever that worst enemy is. If you can see something in him which is beautiful and good for her, which is really wonderful, then you can forgive. You see something worth beginning, something other than the 2 or 3. Bad. Now some people ask me, well, what happens if you've got 998 bad bricks in that wall? Only too good once. You get the Guinness Book of Records for that. The worst wall in the world. But two bad bricks is enough. So two good bricks is enough to get a work on. That. Is great psychology. Why are we to need to see something worthy of the festival? And then the rest is easy. And then you're free. You don't have this terrible pain inside of yourself about thinking you're not worthy. There's something wrong with you. All this anger and resentment at other people that kills you, that tortures you. And you don't have to do it. Any other questions before we finish up? I don't know what they're thinking either, but what they should be thinking. Is this beautiful food and they're going to offer it to, you know, the saga of monks or nuns, as this is almost like one of the symbols of Buddhism, the Buddha Dharma, and they're doing this as an act of charity. So the act of giving, the worshipping, giving, especially giving the worthy people, that's why we do this, celebrating charity. So the next time you get accosted on, say, hey, someone ringing their teeth, don't just put a dollar in the tin. Get that dollar, put it up your head first of all, and then put it in the tin. You're worshiping goodness charity. The wonderful thing to worship. A massive Buddha. By the time I go and die happy. What a day. So I got up. I got the Dharma, the magnum of some. Party panel. I go outside a single Kong mummy.