Dead Loss | Ajahn Brahm

AB20021018_DeadLoss SPEAKERS Ajahn Brahm Ajahn Brahm 00:01 Okay, most people are in who are coming in. This is a first talk of the season. It's everyone knows we have our rains retreat. But the monks and the nuns and that's it's not actually finishing until Monday, Monday evening. But coming in here just on a Friday, because only a couple of days have been here for a while. So this evening, I wanted to bring, as usual, the talks on Buddhism, this is a Buddhist center. So we talk on Buddhism here, to try and bring those talks to problems of everyday life. And especially that, as everybody here would know that we had these bombings in Bali recently, with always terrorist attacks all over the world, as always strife and problems and difficulties in the world. So I wanted to try and weave the Buddha's talk around these events, which affect people's lives are one of the problems with religion these days, if religion isn't relevant to one's daily life, or to one's inner life, if it doesn't actually make sense, and it's not important, and people just walk away from religious places. Because the whole purpose of religion was actually to be relevant to one's daily life. And also to give an indication to give a map of life as a whole, how everything fits in. And in particular that a lot of people have been talking about, I've heard this in the monastery, when people have come to being Donna, this is our monks meal of the day. We don't have televisions in our monastery. We don't have newspapers at this time of the year. So I found I find out about these things when people come and tell me. And there is it reminded me of something in Buddhism of the story of the Buddha. And many people remember that story. And if you've done any study about Buddhism of this young man who saw an old man, sick man, dead man, then eventually a monk. And those signs became part of the Buddha's story, called the day we'll do this interesting aside on his story, I like sort of making these asides as we go along. Interesting aside, I've now used to go and visit the Catholic parish house in Barbosa stay there overnight, when I was teaching meditation in Barbary jail. Some years ago, I started talking about Catholic saints days. And those of you who have some knowledge of the Catholic tradition, though, there's a saint, but every day of the year, and in November, there was a saint called St. Jehoshaphat. And St. Jehoshaphat, became very well known amongst Buddhists, because the original story of St. Jehoshaphat was that he was an Indian. And this many, many hundreds of years ago, this Indian fellow who was actually a prince in India, St. Joseph, that story is preserved in a Christian annals of St. Jehoshaphat. Kept in Georgia, that's Russia. And St. Joseph Jehoshaphat. He was an Indian, as a young man, he saw when he went outside of his palace, an old man is sick man and a dead man and then a holy man. As a result, he left his palace became a holy man. And it converted the whole of India to Christianity, according to the story. And that's actually the story in the texts. And because of that, sort of, he got actually included into the Catholic list of saints, I think November the 14th, or something was his was his day, somewhere around that time. And of course, only when Buddhism became quite popular in the West. And when people the Catholic started finding out about the story of the Buddha, did they realize our there was another fellow in history who was very famous for being a prince in India, who left his home and saw an old man, a sick man and a dead man and a holy man that was a Buddha. And they actually found out Jehoshaphat actually comes from the word Bhagawan. And obviously, we do some chanting early one, we did Namo Tassa Bhagavato. That's actually where Jehoshaphat comes from. When no language changes from country to country. This was a story taken on the Silk Road by the traders and he got to Christianity. And they thought this guy was a Christian as he was a Buddha. So for about 2400 years, I've noticed not 2400 years, about 1900 years, actually, the Catholics were celebrating the Buddha one day a year till they found out and then I was been knocked off the list. But never mind if an interesting aside is actually what's actually the Buddha said Jehovah is no longer a saint on the saints days anymore, but that by the sight that there was, you saw an old man a sick man, a dead man and a holy Amen. And that in this story became a very important part of the career as it were of the Buddha. And eventually seeking an end to this suffering difficulties of life sat under a Bodhi Tree became a life became the Buddha. But the important part of that story is, from then on, they call these things they call them the they call them they would do to us, which means like the Divine Messengers are messengers of the gods. As if like the gods were trying to teach him a lesson about what life really is, and from this time on, like in monk speak, and say, Well, Nancy, what were we talk in a monastery, whenever there's a sickness, or death, or you see someone getting old, as a monk start to get old, we always call this actually messengers of the gods. It's a different way of looking at it, instead of looking as like a tragedy, something really awful happening. We say that this is a learning experience, as if that somebody is trying to tell us something, or teach us something about the nature of life. And as a monk, whenever I see like the pictures for somebody gave us a copy of The West Australian with some of the pictures of the body bombing as soon as I see those, okay, it's tragic, but also remind myself these are what I call like they were tutors, messengers of the gods. Because sometimes it's very easy to forget what real life is all about. And some of the disasters, or the difficulties, the tragedies of life, it's like in Buddhism because like a modern language, a reality check. Bringing us back to what life is all about. Because it's a truth of life, that people die. So truth of life to people get old. The truth of life that people sick fellow came to see me today, I hope they're not here, because it's that they came with their son. And he was just getting some good advice about how to be a father how to be a single father with his son and daughter. And he was saying this very difficult being absorbed teenage kids now, because I'm only 35. And I'm quite, I'm still quite young. He said, a 35. And I talked to his 13 year old son, I said, 35 is that old? And his son said, yeah, that's our old rule 35, you don't feel out? Those people are 35 as your teenage sons and daughters, and they say you are old dad. That's 35. How old are you? If that's old? A lot of people here ancient. Which is that close to being fossils? And it's true, isn't that? Well, I used to have this young dhamma school for kids and a teaching few of the kids about Buddhism. That's one of the questions I asked and what is old. And now it's sort of 20 oldest, 30 own since we're 30. Maybe I'll 40 is definitely old. 45 is ancient. And I said I'm 45. They all laugh, but old age and sickness. And sometimes we need to do reality checks. We are getting old. We Come on, be honest. We're getting sick, we're dying. What this is actually is teaching us something. This is real life. A lot of times the problems are suffering, which we have this is what we're talking about here, the suffering. The problem is these things shock us. These things happen unexpectedly. We don't anticipate these things. In Buddhism, we say that is the major part of the problem. We think this shouldn't happen. Reality Check is reminding us these things do happen. This is part of our life. It's inescapable part of our life. And especially with old age, you know, that's unstoppable. No matter of how many creams, ointments and stuff you can inject into yourself, no matter how many sort of what's it called dyes you put in your hair or whatever, you know, you can sort of stop yourself aging. And as you get aging, you get uglier. It's true, isn't it? We're getting uglier. It's true. Come on, be honest with it. Reality Check. I know so we get we can we get more stupid as well. So the thing is, when you expect this, it doesn't really matter anymore. When you expect to be likely you're not sort of striving so much to be beautiful. And when you sort of expect to be stupid now and again, as you get older and older and older, you can expect it and you can actually be at peace with it. You're not trying to be different than what life is. It's like a messenger of the gods telling you what this life is all about. And if you can accept it, if you let go and be with it, then you can actually get old ugly and some very gracefully. Ajahn Brahm 10:04 But that's just old age, you got sickness as well. Now because sometimes we get how many people expect to be healthy? This is a problem. It's okay to be sick. This is one of my little demonstrations, which I've done. I've done here before. I do it once again here. Could you please put your hands up? If you've ever been sick? Come on, have a look around. And everyone's all those who haven't got their hands up didn't hear what I'm saying. Are you in denial? We've all been sick. From time to time. That's a truth. Everyone here has been sick. Now there's only one who has never been sick. So that one. Okay, so no one here is, has never been sick in life. So sickness is normal. Sickness is usual. So why is it when we go to a doctor, we say there's something wrong with me. I'm sick. If you are Buddhists, if you really understood about you know, life and everything, you would never go to a doctor and say, there's something wrong with me today. Doctor, I'm sick. You go to the doctor and say something right with the doctor, I'm sick again. To be very wrong, it'd be very weird. It'd be something very wrong with you if you never got sick. So, next time you go to see your doctor or specialist, and you feel really awful with flu, or with cancer, or whatever it goes out and say, doctors having right with me again. I'm very sick. But it's changing the whole perception of, of sickness, isn't it? Instead of sickness being something wrong. Sickness becomes part of life, which we don't get embarrassed about. A lot of times people get embarrassed about being sick. And because they get embarrassed about being sick, they never even go to the doctor in the first place. So afraid to be sick. Sometimes we feel very guilty being sick. Now if you if you get sick, or the reason is because you don't eat enough greens. It's your fault, isn't it? Because you don't exercise enough? Well, because you live in stressful lifestyle, you don't come to the Buddhist society to learn meditation enough. Well, you're full. Now, there was just writing this in a little article some time ago, when I was a student, I remember reading a book, which was written about 100 years ago now, by Samuel Butler called error one, it's nowhere spelt backwards. And then this like science fiction, fantasy, he imagined a society not a real society, imaginary society, where if you commit a crime, like stealing or something, then that's considered a sickness. And then you actually go and see a doctor, and he gives you some pills or something or regime. So you stopped being sick, because a lot of sickness a lot of crime now is because of our upbringing, or because we're not in our right minds. That's why we do these things, like speeding or whatever. And so that's a sickness to go and see a doctor. But if you are ill, that you've got a cold, or you got arthritis or something, then that's your fault. You go up in a court of law, and you get punished by this. So you get six months or something in, in this book, there's a wonderful passage where it was a court scene. And this poor fellow was in the dark is about to be sentenced by the judge by having a cold. And this was not the first time he had a cold, he was a repeat offender. And then he was living in the dark. And the judge really laid it on him and said, You shouldn't take better care of your health. It's your fault, no 10 years or something he caught for being a serial offender. What that was actually doing was making a very powerful comment. Why is it that sometimes we punish crimes? We heal sicknesses. What's the difference between a crime and a sickness? A lot of crimes are actually sicknesses. And maybe rehabilitation means retreating these things, not for punishment, but trying to heal the reasons why people commit crimes. In the same way. We're trying to heal the body. So it doesn't display the symptoms of an illness. And also, he was looking at illnesses and how easy it is for people to feel guilty to feel wrong about being sick, and because they feel guilty and wrong about being sick. Number one, don't consider going to the doctor in time, that don't feel comfortable with sickness, and they feel afraid of sickness. And when sickness happens, they got all this emotional stuff around sickness, which makes it worse when other people get sick. they get upset as well. And because of all of the negativity which goes around sickness, not accepting it, we get even more ill. And sicknesses lasts longer than they should. So the day we're due to this messenger of the gods saying sickness is okay. Sickness, sicknesses, normal sicknesses. All right? It changes the whole psychology instead of being your fault or feel guilty or being afraid about it, we accept it. We work with it, we live with it, it doesn't last very long. We're at peace with it. We take away the stress and the negativity of sickness is amazing. Just know how quickly people get better. Now, so acceptance is one of the stories of sickness. This is one of the powerful stories about this friend, Miss monk, friend of mine, and he was got very, very sick, you said was when I was in Thailand years and years ago, he got my FoId fever. I think, well, he told me at the time, the three strains of typhoid, he got to at the same time. So it's very, very sick man. He almost died, we had to send him down to Bangkok, we had arranged for an ambulance to be at those who've been to Bangkok, the Hong Kong station, the main station in Bangkok, managed to arrange a ambulance to be on the platform to pick him up because he was that close to death. And I talked with a doctor who was actually in the ambulance to pick him up and rush him to the hospital. He told me that when he took one look at this MAC, he thought no way we could get into the hospital in time that he was actually in shock. And from what lack of fluid or something he'd had that fevered for too long, and is very severe. So this poor fellow was, you know, really next to death, they got him to the hospital, they kept him alive. But he never got better. So we sent him to a monastery in England, for many years, two or three years, he was in this monastery, really, really sick, could not move, or he didn't we could move sometimes he got out of his bed to walk, know, down to try and get a bit of exercise. And that would take away all his energy for weeks. You'd be lying in bed all this time. And the reason why we sent him to our monastery in England at that time, we didn't have this monastery here in Perth at that time, because we thought he needed Western medicine, with all of the different types of medicine available into the West. And the monastery was quite willing to look after him, whatever which way no matter how much it costs, he had all sorts of different treatments. Nothing worked. He just was on the edge of life and death many, many times for about three years as poor monk. And what actually was the important change, support and moment in the sickness was when the abbot of this monastery had what we call in in Buddhism, an insight and Insight means like seeing deeply into the problem. And we liked the root of it. Why was this monk really sick? Why was he getting better? And smarter went up into this monks room i i went to see when he was sick once when I was visiting there. And this is he literally was in the attic of Chitose monastery is old country house, this attic where they sort of kept this very sick monk is dreary and dim and down and cold. They kept it in form as possible, but it didn't really have a good feeling about it. But when he went up there, just this advert and this one man lying there feeling like death. These are the words his habit said he said I've come up here on behalf of all of the monks and nuns in this monastery and all the lay people who look after you and support us on behalf of everyone. I'm coming up here to give you permission to die. You could die so you don't have to get better. Now those words, this young monk started crying, you wet cried his eyes out. From that day onwards, he started to get it. He did get better recently better. He is now out and about walks and reasonably healthy. And you can see the psychology was a brilliant piece of insight by that by now such as sumo toning, brilliant piece of insight he realized this fellow was sick. You thought that sickness was reading being bad, even worse than being sick was dying. I'd really upset his friends after all they'd done to him or that money they spent trying to look after him. And then he goes and dies on you. How ungrateful can you be? In a sense, I think you can understand what a person feels like when they're sick. A lot of times they're trying to get better for the sake of their friends and their loved ones. As extra stress sickness. So he was saying it's alright to be sick, go on, be sick. If you have to die, go on die. Ajahn Brahm 20:08 Come on, we actually say that you're giving permission for nature to go on and stop controlling it with all these emotional demands we put upon sickness and even death. When it was that degree of letting go, the emotional turmoil or psychology of sickness changes as an obvious chance to get better. And so this is like the day we're due to have sickness, the divine messenger sickness is and there's nothing wrong with it, it's just got a bad PR job at the moment is better marketing. Even pain, which we're afraid of, sometimes pain which comes up in our body. I've mentioned this before, as a Buddhist monk, you were taught how to look at pain. Sometimes that young child make you sit No, for a long, long, long periods of time. And just he was a very, very great teacher Urgench, I was tough as nails. And sometimes you hated him. But now you realize what a great teacher he was. Sometimes you'd be sitting for hours and hours and hours he started talking about we're doing now and I could ordinary talk is only supposed to last an hour. Then you go in for two hours, three hours, four hours is getting too close to midnight, five hours, six hours, you had to get up at three o'clock in the monasteries in Thailand only ever two hours to sleep, if he got back. And sort of two o'clock, he was still talking and you couldn't go. And it came to three o'clock, he said, Now five to three, you can go now go to the toilet and back for three o'clock for the morning session normally was. And you had to sit on the the hard concrete without any cushions on that really hurt. And there's only one of two choices there, which you had either you just got into anger. And that just felt terrible. Or you actually learn how to just to let go. And when monks did this, after a while you just let go and it was no problem anymore. The thinking about it was a problem. With all pain, the thinking about it. That's what hurts, the experience itself is actually quite bearable. But you think about it, and it gets worse and worse and worse and worse and worse. So understanding just this through the experiences and the trainings. And this is what you can train with whenever you get six or ill or with pain and pain happens again and again and again in our life. This messengers from other gods, it's teachers, sudden we have to learn the next time you have pain. Stop thinking about it. Stop thinking pain is bad. Stop thinking that, you know the weakness is bad. Try to say it's good. The pain is okay. And allow it in rather than trying to keep it out. And if you can stop thinking about about your smile, very peaceful, just allow it to be you'll find the whole experience of pain sickness disappears, or rather not disappears, but changes. Pain is still there. But something has disappeared, was disappeared is what In Buddhism we call the two dots. So the two thorns. This is a simile of the Buddha. He said it's like the human person is being created with two thorns or two darts, physical and the mental. You said of those two, the physical, you can't really do much about or people get sick or people experience pain from time to time. You can't do much about that one. But what you can do about is the mental part. The mental thought, body is aching. The mind is aching to that's the ordinary person body's in pain. But you take out the mental that which is I don't want this I can't stand this. This shouldn't be this as well take that data out. You'll find the whole experience of pain completely changes is quite acceptable. Not only that, but the death as well. Where we see the death of others such as in Bali. Or we see it in traffic accidents, or you see it in the the hospitals in your family. Sometimes it seems because of our society just so sad. Such a tragedy we call death when the media play it up. But death is happening all the time. These are messengers. The reason why people get really upset is because sometimes death happens where it shouldn't happen. If it's happening where we don't expect to happen is sometimes we expect it to happen on the other roads from time to time. Sometimes we expect it to happen in the hospital. Sometimes we expect people to die. That's okay. But young people die. Or children dying. children dying in swimming pools, or children dying young people dying when they're partying, something in our culture say, okay, you can die other places, but not these places. But what the day would do to as I say, these are messengers from God to say you can die anywhere, at any time, this is our life. That isn't the same way that sub deaths is normal. So, so just same way, it's like a sickness is normal. So death is normal. There's a monk, I keep asking me what is wrong with death. We get it's just got a bad marketing, that's all. When I'm saying this, I'm saying this just not as a joke. What I'm saying is that, when we try to accept that when we learn how to accept these things, so we're not shocked with these things, it changes the whole meaning of our life. In the same way, where we understand what pain is, it changes the whole meaning of sort of sickness, we understand what sort of death is it changes the whole meaning? Because we know okay, that is, is is going to happen one day. So it makes the life more important. We always say, How much time have we got? How much time have you got left before you die? According to statistics, if you look how many people in this room now, maybe 200 250. in one year's time, I think maybe five of you will be dead. Which ones are they have a look around? And don't look at the old ones. Because there's not always a Oh, watch. When I made sure that I made that just because I don't know why people laugh, but I keep up. People think it's fat. It's quite sick, isn't it really what sets people think it's, it's fatty is because it's true. Now, when we come to terms with our deficit, day to day, what is telling us is not to be sort of morbid. It's telling us that life is valuable. That life is precious, every time that we see someone dead, instead of getting upset and afraid. And so that's good to know. Because we're not in denial. We don't think it's going to happen to us. Basically, it's reminding us of something we think we don't want to know. We should know this and as we do know this, we come to realize how precious life is. And I say how precious life is it means you haven't got time to have arguments with your loved ones. Now if today was your last day if the world was going to end to buy what would you do? Have you got anyone you have to say sorry to have you been anyone you really want to say how much you appreciate and love them? how important they are to you. This was your last day how many husbands and wives would have arguments if isn't the last day close to death, the whole the whole rules of the game change instead of like being so critical and so mean and so selfish. We have one more day to go we look on life and each other in a completely different way will be far more forgiving. Are more loving, far more caring not so critical. Not so harsh on our judgments of ourselves and others if this was your last day. What debt is Teddy glances say this could be your last day. This This could be your last week, this could be your last year. So make sure you live this day. As it's your last I don't mean like okay, let's party it's the last day. That's not how people live their last days. How people live their last days Ajahn Brahm 29:23 is is knowing that things like relationships, friendships, kindness, love, compassion, all those what we call spiritual qualities. They become paramount and they become important. That's why when we have something like sort of a tragedy in Bali, what does people start talking about? Some people start talking about revenge and those stupid people that just made some more terrorist bombings in the future? Well, people start to try to think about well, let's make sure these things never happen again by solving the root problem of hatred and bigotry. Have you ever had you actually solve hatred and bigotry in the world, the same way you solve hatred and bigotry in your family? No by being more forgiving, more understanding, more listening, more caring. We can all do that in our life. And start with your husband. Start with your wife, start with your children start with your friends start with your mother in law, whoever else it is. Just be that little bit more caring a little bit more forgiving. The fellow know this fellow who came to the monastery a few days ago was talking about his children. He forgot what it was like to be a child to be a teenager. There was no trying to control them so much. And I gave them this this wonderful ceremony with an experience which happened in Northeast Thailand some years ago. In you know, in Thailand, in the Southeast Asia, in the farming communities, they grow rice and they they don't have enough money for for mechanical plow. So they use water buffalo, knees, water buffalo, they pull the plow, you know, what they eat becomes a fertilizer at the other end the fertilizer factories as well. And they're always part of the family. They live underneath the the houses. And during the dry season, they have to be taken out into the fields to graze and this man was taking a water buffalo out to graze, he was walking along the path past our monastery. And for one reason or another, the water buffalo spooked and wanted to run away. And this man tried to hold on to the rope without carrying the water buffalo. And everybody should know that water buffalos, his big sort of animals are far more powerful than the human. And so the water buffalo was running away the string wrapped around the top of his finger and pulled the top of his finger off. So he came into the monastery, just snow with half a finger and as soon as they see a bit of bone in the blood there. So now he came in there, so we wrapped up the wound, which sent him into hospitals, okay, afterwards, you know, didn't sort of die from it was obviously. But anyway, we thanked him because now he gave us another story. Ajahn Brahm 32:28 That other story is like, sometimes your children are like water buffalo, suddenly, they're stronger than you. So if you want to sort of go somewhere and run away, you try and stop them. Now that you can sort of get fingers pulled off and other things pulled off, you're gonna get a lot of suffering and pain, that waterpark, but I only ran away about half a kilometer and a stop there was that he go where it goes. And you can just walk after afterwards and he can keep you all five fingers and you keep his sanity if you've got teenage killed children. So a lot of times it just let them go a little bit, then he could pull them back afterwards. But they're water buffalo. And that simile also is with husbands or wives and sons that that that water buffalo had David, you try and stop them what happened to get things pulled off. It hurts. So this is at the center of the water buffalo he came and actually thanked me because it really worked. And when he actually is when he let his children have that little bit more freedom. They didn't ask for so much. actually much better kids afterwards. They're just rebelling and when they got so into Polly games are always pulling they got nothing to pull against. They just stay at home be good kids. So this is actually just like the same with like, any things in life, whether it's sickness and death. These are things like big water buffaloes, you can't fight some of these things, you let them go and then no, actually no problem anymore. A lot of times is because we don't really accept what real life is. When we don't accept what real life is we get really confused when real life comes along. Now like your body Bobby ignore, we go to the doctor and someone tells us we got a bad cancer or we're about to die or you get a phone call from a relation. So when say they're very sick, or they're dying, or they're dead. We get shocked at these things because we don't expect them and we don't expect them because we're basically living in cloud cuckoo land. Now we're in denial of the truth of life. And so when we get to come to the truth of life, it's not at all morbid and sad. It actually makes life much more beautiful. In the sense that life becomes much more precious well not because much more precious. We don't argue with each other. So much we have much kinder with each other spiritual values become much more important. monetary values become put in their right places. Important but not the be all and end all of life and we become happier and more peaceful people. When we can happier, more peaceful people, it means we're learning the lessons of these things. We're learning the lessons of how to live together in peace and harmony together. We're also learning about what life is all about. Now we have this space of time between our birth and our death. And what we're using this for, as some people actually asked him what is life for the purpose of life. And it shouldn't really sort of be that hard for a person to understand that the reason of life the reason why we're here is actually to learn to actually to learn about life, to learn about sort of how to be at peace with ourselves, how to be kind to ourselves, how to be at peace with other people how to be kind with other people how to be forgiving. And some people sort of very hard to learn. That's why the Buddha gave this simile of these these horses. And then the simile of the horses as though some horses learned very quickly, you don't even need to actually even hit them, you just say no go a bit faster, or go to the left and a horse does it they're very good horses easy to trade. Other horses, you've got to get the stick out. But as soon as the shadow of the steak or the goat falls upon their body, they realize, Oh, I better do the right thing now, otherwise, it's gonna be big trouble. That's the second type of horse that is the shadow of the whip is enough. The third type of horse, you could attack the very slightly. There's a very slight tap, just to remind them that okay, yes. And then they learn about life. fourth type of force, you've got to act on what's funny once and once they know all that really hurt, I'm not gonna do that again. Then they do the right thing. The fifth type of force is a one you got to keep hitting and hitting and hitting again again, and again. They still they don't know which type of horse Are you? Ajahn Brahm 36:55 And unfortunately, many people identify with the fifth with how many times we have to learn and of course, you know, what the hitting of the whip is, is the suffering of life. How many times do we have to be hurt our life until we learn how many times we have to get angry other people. That's actually hitting yourself again and again and again until we learn. What does anger do to then get you anywhere? If you cultivate anger, and you start a terrorist group in your home, how can I block my my husband? Or my whatever we also this is a terror tactics, isn't it? By words of mass destruction, where you sort of talk to each other couldn't give a lie that it was also about mass destruction. That was the the pen is mightier than the sword? And certainly the words are much mightier than many other things in life quite slow, but suffering and type in life. Why can't we actually learn about these things? And learn actually, the anger just hurts everybody. Certainly, it hurts your any body. Whenever you get angry. Next time you get angry and say something really rotten. Ask yourself how it feels. When it feel inside to you to do it, does that make you feel good is that happiness is how you want to feel in life. We get angry at someone else. Don't say they deserve it don't justify it. Because how do you feel? If you justify it, and you say that person deserves it? Why are you allowing them to make you unhappy? Why are you allowing other people to control your happiness and your suffering? By allowing them to make you upset? When you put it that way, it's actually stupid getting angry at others, you're allowing them to control you. The next time someone actually you know, tries to upset you or tries to push your buttons. Be tough. be rebellious, don't allow them to control you at all. They call you a pig, disco I coin oil. Or whatever it is that is that allows you to control you're just saying so don't get upset as people actually tried to on you know, they tried to you know, try and find your weak spots. That's it. Now those of you have been school teachers, you know, the first day in class or the children trying to find your weak spots, trying to sort of even as a man, sometimes you have to go to schools, and actually, they try the kids trying to find your weak spots as well. So there's so we know that when I used to go to teach in schools, sometimes it's girls schools at 13 or 14 years old, they're the most dangerous for Mac because I remember the one of the toughest questions I got asked when I was at the Girls School. Next up I was giving a talk on Buddhism and Buddhist culture. There's no afterwards use ask any questions and so this girl put their hand up and said the girls too. have you on Ajahn Brahm 40:06 Thank you very much. I thanked her because that's another sort of story for my talks. With one of the the funniest times this is going off on a tangent again, I went to give a talk at a girls school in purse. And I think it might have been Mercedes, I'm not quite sure, but it was one of the top schools in Perth a couple days later, I started doing some business in Perth. And walking along, I think High Street, what could have been a Mary St. Mary Street, it was walking around Mary Street and these girls came in opposite direction. They say hi, and sort of nice to see you again. And say, Oh, do you remember me? They said yes. You came to give her a talk at our school a couple of days ago. So that's really I really feel flattered. You remember me? And the girl said, we'll never forget anyone who's called for ah Ajahn Brahm 41:02 So Brad Newman remember the brother. So they just try to wide be up as that, you know, teenage girls sometimes do. Great, Dave, isn't it? Anyhow. But where do you live, one of the things I was I was taught as a, as a school teacher, and I keep us on back. If you make a mistake, and people actually try to make make fun of you, you laugh with them, then they never laughing at you know the laughing with you. And so it's a joke together. So as I say, when sometimes tries to make you angry by sort of making a joke, you laugh at yourself as well. And then it's laughter together. So you never allowing another person to actually to make you angry and upset. You're not allowing other people to control your happiness. This is actually the what we learn in life. This is what the whole purpose of life is. Learning these ideas, these techniques, so you are at peace with yourself. That's actually grade one. When you go into primary school, when you go to secondary school, you do more than just like being at peace with life, you start actually learning more about yourself, know who you are, and how life is and how life works. And that's where we get into things like you know, meditation actually to find out who you are. Who are you when you found out? Yeah. How long have you been living with yourself? Some of you be living here 50 6070 years didn't really know who you are yet. But time you found out and had How can you find out who you are anywhere you can find out who is having a look at so often how many people actually looking inside? How many people actually look outside into life. And it's a very good like little metaphor, we always look outside, at our husband at our work and other people today at the bank that have no tomorrow. But yesterday, how many people actually look inside? And what we really mean by looking inside? Is it in the present moment inside to see actually who we are. A lot of times when we start to look inside, we get a bit afraid of what we might find. So a lot of times we've we're afraid we we haven't got the courage to actually to look. That's the reason why people can't become study meditation would fade and no find out what's actually in there in the present moment. We're always running away. We run away from real life like death, sickness, like ourselves. And we never find out about life this way that they were due to the Divine Messengers actually saying, Well, this is that's going to happen one day you but actually no, have a look now to find out what this is all about. Because one day we'll be in a bar in Bali, not me because I'm a man, but you know, we'll be somewhere in a hospital where we're about to die, we're getting sick. That happens to us one day, we better find out pretty soon, who we are and what life is all about. And one of the nice things about Buddhism is obviously I'm praising Buddhism, because I'm a Buddhist monk. What are nice things about this is, no one is going to tell you what to believe. No one's going to tell you the solution. But we're going to really help you find out for yourself. And actually to tell you the way to find out to look inside or how to look inside, what to look out for but it's up to you actually to know what's inside and what this life is all about what happiness was suffering is, what pain what feeding from pain is. This is the whole point of this part of meditation to try and encourage people just to stop running about their thinking life is going to be all happiness and fun. Find out about yourself. First of all, find out who you are, what life is. When you start getting into deep meditation, which everyone does eventually if you give it enough time, not only is it very happy to be peaceful, a wonderful way to spend an hour a couple of hours. You also start to find out some amazing truths. about yourself. Find out, for example, that the reason why we get upset, why we're unhappy is called desire. Could we want something other than we've got. And as soon as we develop a tiny bit of contentment, of letting go, so we don't want anything for a few moments. We ever actually been content in your life. When they've been the happiest moments of your life, have a look back the happiest moments in your life. A lot of times, the happiest moments in your life are happy because there are moments of deep contentment. moments when you don't want anything else in the whole world, you're so happy to be here. So content, everything is right and nothing is missing. Nothing, you won't know where you need to go. That's why that word contentment is such a powerful word in Buddhism, content in but it's another way to say for those few moments, you got no desires, I think you want nothing missing. Nothing lost. Those moments of contentment in your life, you'll find that the most tranquil, serene, peaceful, happiest day of your life. They are clues they are also Divine Messengers of what will happen this truly is. If you try and control the life, when you want to live forever, you don't want sort of tragedies to happen in your life. Naturally, you're asking for something life can't give you when you don't ask, if gives you every sick. When you're content, just to be here, if I do have everything you ever wanted, it's about finding the hidden treasure. But the place where it's all buried is right inside of you, you have enough already. In this very deep spiritual sense. This is what meditation starts to teach you that so the happiness of life comes from contentment. When I start to do this one, it starts to get deeper and deeper into the mind in deeper and deeper into you. And you start finding amazing things. One of the amazing things you find this power of meditation is the nature of your mind. Who you are, you find that this body is very external. And the mind has something different. As I already mentioned, with pain, we get bodily pain, we get mental pain, just because the body hurts doesn't mean the mind has to hurt. We understand what the mind truly is, not only do we know that the body might hurt, but the mind doesn't need to hurt, you'll know that the body dies. That which we call mind stream of consciousness will want and will not die when you die. bodies come and go. This is not the first body you've had it. For many of you here it won't be your last. You'll be born and died many times. If you think you finish with school, think again. You may have to go back there all over again. Imagine going back to school. But even more than that. Imagine having nappies again. No sucking on the bottle, having to go to primary school, and all that sort of stuff all over again having to study for your TA T exams. If you're lucky that is but sometimes we have to go through this all over again and many times getting old and getting sick dying. This is what we call like the Buddhist idea of rebirth. Reincarnation is odd like choose which you just have to read in the books and actually accept it just because someone said it. Again, there are ways where you could find out that you have lived before that the mind doesn't get extinguished when you die. And because so many people in the West are skeptical about no reverse. Sometimes this is one thing which I got really surprised that when I started coming out to the Western and the teaching about things like rebirth, I couldn't understand why it was actually irrational. Why so many people believe there wasn't such a thing as many lives the evidence is out there this books about people who can recall their past lives. It seems amazing that people think there's only one life can you explain like things like child prodigies? Even a Mozart was it seven years of age he was writing symphonies. He couldn't have done that just in seven years of of life. When actually starts to look at the evidence, and actually to challenge be skipped To coordinate about the evidence, be skeptical about some of the very hard held views, which we have and who knows where they came from, but sometimes they don't fit reality. And it seems to be the most obvious thing that we've lived many, many times as many evidence of people we call their past lives, getting evidence, you can't find any other way. If you want to find out for yourself, you can meditate until you get into such capabilities, you can actually recall past lives. Several people do those, you could do those if you put enough effort into meditation and do it properly. The very least you'd know the nature of the mind is something which is independent of the body. And the body dies a mind word day. When one starts to experience those things as truths to oneself, it makes a whole idea of like old age, sickness and deaths, or change. But people get really upset at young people die, because we're seeing now just one chance at life. And it's all been taken away, it's gone. Ajahn Brahm 50:58 We see why. Why is it No, all those young people, mostly young people in Bali, why did all the young people die there seems unfair when we start to put to consume the wider perspective of Buddhism and Hinduism, early Christianity to believe in rebirth as well. So to Socrates and Plato, in Greece, all those ancient philosophers all had very, very strong beliefs and rebirth, and experiences as well, where they remember the things. We put everything in that sort of context, then the sting of death gets far less. The fact that people die young, in one life, die old, and the next life and then middle of the life afterwards, sort of averages out. Sometimes you can see with many lives, the law of karma, why people die young, why people die old, why people die of middle, very beautiful teaching, the Buddha said, if you are really caring for other people, giving other people long life, then of natural justice, you'll get love life yourself. If you'd like a soldier with an army of a butcher winner in a shop, you take away the lives of others, then you'd have a short life next time to learn the value of life not as a punishment, but as a learning experience. So you learned is how valuable life is. So there's many people in this world who tell blacks, killing other people, when they come back, they would have to have short lives. And I'll people ask you about the law of karma. Why is it that no people die together? Very often because we do karma together. gangs, armies work together to to kill or to hurt your karma together, the results come together very often. So this is some of the understandings of the question why is plausible? You can actually look into your mind and see that these things actually work. They're true. And they give the answer to the question why these things happen. And also their take away the worst part of it, because, okay, you know, they had a short life this time, next time, they might have a longer life, as long as is still making the right karma. So that way that we vain interest doesn't make any sense anymore. If I kill you, because you killed my brother, I'm just adding to the worst karma of this world. And every religion teaches that anger doesn't end with more anger. Ill Will doesn't end with more ill will. Violence doesn't end with violence, the only way to stop anger, Ill Will of violence is to give forgiveness and love. Hard to do you realize the results of not giving these things, it's the only option to do. Sometimes the hardest way is the best way. And so when we understand about life, rebirths the mind, we can actually put these things in perspective. And that Buddhist perspective gives a far greater sense of peace, understanding about life, with learning much more about life about this, what life really is birth to death and other birth to death and why we get long life short lives, why sometimes we die vided death, sometimes non violent deaths. It's all because the cumulative actions we've done in the past, the very best, the very least. So you can say it's plausible. If you want to check that out, get it deep into your meditation, you'll see the truth of that for yourself. So don't have to believe it from anybody. And it gives a far greater sense of a peace, harmony, even social cohesion because it takes away the need for revenge. takes away the demand for retribution. In the same way, if we do something which is bad we feel guilty about, we don't need to seek retribution from ourselves. We seek to learn, to make amends, not to punishment, but to make amends through understanding. I think that that's probably the best message for as a body bombing, or whether it's a tragedy in your family, or whatever other tragedies in life, these are messengers. These are teachers, character reminders about what life is, what the purpose of life is what we should be doing. So we can understand why we couldn't know what to do when there's tragedies. And we can be at peace and at ease, understanding life. That's a little talk today about sort of life messages, suffering, what we should do about it, why and all of that. And thank you very much for listening today.