Okay, everyone, so Happy New Year, first of all.
I forgot to say that before, so I need to do it now.
So very wonderful to see you all here. And today I am going to talk
about one of the perennial themes of Buddhism, I think it is,
which is about 'going against the stream'.
Have you heard about the idea of going against the stream?
It is a thing that you find in a number of places in the suttas, this idea,
and I just want to talk a little bit about what it actually means,
various angles on this idea, and also how we can use this idea
to actually enhance our spiritual practice.
So the idea on the Buddhist teachings about stream,
stream is like a metaphor,
it's like something which points to something else,
and the metaphor, the thing it points to, one of the most important things
is all the habits of our mind.
The habits of a mind is like a stream, something that flows on,
it's like self perpetuating,
that's the nature of a habit, just kind of goes on whether you want to or not.
And you discover that in meditation practice, right,
you close your eyes, and you see these blooming habits following you along.
And you think about all kinds of things whether you want to or not,
actually you want to of course deep down, but whether you want to or not,
it seems like these habits just take over the mind.
And this is a very important part of this idea of the stream,
the habits of the mind that drive you on.
And you can feel this in your meditation practice,
the stream of the mind, this forced inside of you that drives on by itself.
This is one of the ideas of "stream" in the suttas,
these kinds of innate habits that we have,
not really innate, because they can be stopped,
but very fundamental habits of the mind.
Another interesting idea of the 'stream' in the suttas
is the thing called 'viññāṇa sota',
it's a Pali word, I like to use some fancy terminology always.
So viññāṇa sota means.. the stream of consciousness,
according to the suttas, this idea that the stream of consciousness
is the mind basically which goes on from one life to another one,
carries on into the future, established in this life,
then gets established in the future existence.
That's another stream, which is problematic, right,
the stream of habits is problematic, you want to go against that.
The stream of consciousness is going on from life to life,
that's another really problematic one.
So all of these things are things that we try to, kind of, slow down to begin with,
and eventually hopefully, cut those streams entirely.
But of all these things,
the most important kind of stream is a stream of craving.
Craving is actually part of the mental habits that we have,
the first thing I mentioned,
mental habits are much more than craving,
but craving is a very important part of it.
It’s this desire that always kind of goes on and on and on,
the stream of desire, the mind kind of moving on to something else, continuously,
all the time, never really stopping,
never really standing still, even in your meditation
it's very rare that the mind becomes completely still,
it's actually very difficult to do.
There's always a little bit of movement there,
going somewhere, looking for something deeper,
once you finally get really happy in your meditation, you think, 'What's next?'
That's the stream of craving in action right there.
So this craving, this desire to find something more,
something additional in this world is really, really problematic.
Now there is a few suttas, a few discourses of the Buddha
that I thought I would bring up,
I always bring up some suttas, that's kind of what I've become famous,
not famous for, I wouldn't call myself famous,
but that's kind of what I am known for among some people here anyway.
And this sutta is from one of the very nice collections in the Pali Suttas,
called the Itivuttaka, have you heard about the Itivuttaka?
I know some of you have, some of you maybe not.
Itivuttaka literally means 'thus-saidness' or something like that,
Iti-vuttaka; vuttaka - saidness, thus-saidness,
and this collection of suttas is part of the Khuddakanikāya,
the shorter collection, which actually is the longest collection.
It is called the shorter just to confuse you.
So, but in this collection is the Itivuttaka,
and the very interesting thing about the Itivuttaka,
that it was a collection of discourses that was transmitted by a lay woman,
which is kind of fascinating,
because sometimes we think about Buddhism as very kind of hierarchical
with the monks and the nuns and then laymen, laywomen,
but actually sometimes you find that it doesn't matter so much in Buddhism
who you are, what matters is the qualities of your mind, the qualities of your heart,
and if you have good teachings that people should remember,
that we should keep for posterity,
then you are worthwhile listening to, we should listen to you,
what have you got to say? Did you hear the teachings of Buddha?
lease come, we want to hear those teachings.
And this is exactly what happened with this Itivuttaka,
it was taught or transmitted by this laywoman,
and then it was somehow given to the monks,
and the monks will then carry on the chanting, maybe the nuns as well,
I'm not sure,
carry on the chanting of these suttas.
So this is very fascinating.
Sometimes we have a slightly one-sided idea of Buddhism,
I think sometimes it is more inclusive than we think it is.
Anyway, so one of the suttas, I think it is the109 of this collection,
according to this sutta, it starts off with the Buddha saying,
suppose there was a person who was going down a stream that seemed
pleasant and delightful.
A person going down a stream maybe sitting on a raft or something;
I don't know what they're doing.
Kind of Robinson cruiser of India on this river.
So very happy, the stream is pleasant, the water is the right temperature,
the wind is just right,
maybe there is some food on this raft, I don't know what, but very pleasant,
the river, going downstream.
And this is kind of exactly what our lives are like.
As you carry on in this stream of craving in your life,
it seems pleasant, right?
We think of it as pleasant.
We think of the things in our life,
our relationships, the things that we own,
the pleasures that we kind of enjoy in our daily basis.
They seem great. They seem marvelous, right?
They seem wonderful. What is there to fear?
There's nothing to fear, right?
We're on this beautiful raft going down the stream,
we have no idea where it's going,
but it's a good river, it must be going into a good place.
This is how our minds work.
If you think about how your mind works,
when you talk about the craving and going on the stream of craving,
it always looks good in the future, right?
When you think about where you're heading,
it never looks bad, because if it were looking bad, you wouldn't go there.
It always looks good.
This is kind of the interesting thing about the idea of craving.
When you follow that arrow of craving,
the direction of craving, the result always seems positive.
It always looks like you're going to a good place.
This kind of relationship, that's the right person for me,
that's going to be a really good one.
And you stop at the point where the relationship starts,
you don't go beyond that,
you forget to ask "and then what?"
The "and then what?", that's the interesting one, right?
That's one of my favorite teachings from Ajahn Brahm.
I remember that when I first came to Bodhinyana Monastery,
and he taught the "and then what" teaching.
I think we should write a sub commentary on the "and then what" teaching,
because I don't think it was ever written,
the Buddha never mentioned that. Maybe he did actually,
but maybe not precisely in those terms.
I think he did. Yeah,
because this is exactly the point of some of the similes of the Buddha,
is like this "and then what" idea.
So this is a problem in our life,
it looks like we're heading towards a positive goal.
When we crave, we look to the future, where this is all going,
it looks beautiful, it looks delightful,
but we're not seeing things clearly.
We are on this river,
we don't really know whether the river turns right or left,
what's going to be around the corner, we have no idea, but it looks good,
so we hold on to it. And then as we are going down this river,
there is a man who looks on and sees what is going on.
So who is this man, do you think, in the suttas?
Okay, I'm going to tell you... you don't have to answer.
The man is the Buddha.
The Buddha looks on, because the Buddha sees what is going on.
The Buddha is looking on at humanity, and he is seeing all of us
on this river of craving, going full speed ahead with desires,
with all of these kinds of things, blind, like moles,
no idea where this tunnel is gonna go underground.
And we just carry on, digging that tunnel, carrying on in the stream,
and no idea what's happening.
The Buddha says, actually, where are you going?
He says, if you carry on in this stream,
you're going to this pool, there's a pool down there,
and in that pool, what do you find?
Whirlpools, waves, saltwater crocodiles, not freshwater, saltwater crocodiles.
The salties is not the freshies because the salties are the scary ones.
And then monsters. Monsters are kind of the fourth one.
I'm not sure whether it's the monsters or the sharks or something like that.
I am Australian now, so I have to know the difference between
the salties and the freshies.
And the fellow who did this translation, he's an Australian monk, Ajahn Sujato.
So, he did this and he knew the difference between
saltwater and freshwater crocodiles, he deliberately put saltwater crocodiles,
so we knew this was really dangerous,
not some kind of small, minor, cute crocodile like the freshwater crocodiles.
So that's what he sees.
If he carries-on, that's where he's gonna go.
And of course, if you meet up with a saltwater crocodile,
and it's lunchtime for that saltwater crocodile;
that's it, you're finished.
And so this is kind of fascinating, right?
You're on this beautiful trip, going down this stream,
everything seems so beautiful,
and there's all these saltwater crocodiles waiting for you around the corner.
What happens if you know that there are saltwater crocodiles around the corner?
You get pretty scared, right?
These are very scary beasts, these saltwater crocodiles,
they are really scary, and so you become very worried about this.
And of course what happens once you get worried
is that you start paddling for life with your hands and feet
to go against the stream.
Hopefully the current isn't so strong, hopefully it's quite weak,
so you can paddle faster than the stream will take you down
to the saltwater crocodiles.
So this is the idea;
once you understand the danger of craving,
why is craving so dangerous?
Let's just stay with that just for a couple of moments before I carry on..
What is it about craving that is so dangerous?
What is it about this sweet thing that we have in our life
that seems to give us so much happiness; how can that be dangerous?
And the first reason of course is that craving makes us attached,
it makes us hold onto things in the world.
And the moment you hold on to things in the world,
you're asking for suffering. You're saying, please, may I suffer!
You may not actually be saying that,
but you should be saying that, that's what I'm saying.
Because the moment you hold onto things,
you know that those things are impermanent,
you know that they are unreliable,
you know you can't hold on to them.
So if you grasp things that are inherently ungraspable,
you have a problem.
And that problem is called suffering.
This is a small one, this doesn't really sound like saltwater crocodiles,
maybe whirlpool, may be a wave but not really a salty,
salties are too, kind of, scary for that.
But it's worse than that, right?
And what is worse is that in our pursuit of all the sensual pleasures in the world,
we tend to do stupid things.
If you look at your life when you have done something unwholesome,
if I look at my life when I have done something unwholesome,
very often it was in connection with some kind of sensual pleasures
that didn't go my way or something like that,
and you start doing things, saying things,
acting in ways that are terrible, certainly thinking in bad ways.
So this is the part of the problem, is that external world of the five senses,
this craving that we are pursuing is inherently connected to violence
and to all of these problems that we call immorality;
violence, conflict, and all of these kinds of things in the world.
Because we share that whole external world with other people.
Because we share with others,
it's inherently going to be a conflicting world,
that world of the five senses.
And because it is inherently involved with conflict, it is really problematic.
I think this was one of those really interesting insights I had in my practice
when I saw that. I thought ‘wow, this is what the sensory realm really is like.
It is a realm of conflict’.
You cannot divide the sensory realm, you cannot separate it
from the idea of conflict, of ill will, and all of these kinds of things.
They have to go together by definition,
because we share a world where everyone wants more;
conflict has to arise as a consequence.
And once you see that, that whole world actually looks far less attractive,
because you know that the moment you buy into that,
you also buy into all the problems, all the immorality, all the conflict,
all the pain that also comes with that world,
and then you start to shift in a different direction.
You think about life in a different way.
You think about your goals in life in a new way because of that.
So then your paddle, and you paddle, and paddle and paddle as crazy
as far as you can.
Where do you go when you paddle?
Okay, this is the next part. Where do you go when you paddle?
The first thing is that you can't just paddle.
The Buddhist idea is you want to cross the stream.
So first of all you paddle a little bit, and then you eventually realize
you want to cross this blooming stream, but initially you paddle.
So one of the other interesting suttas I'm going to bring up now,
which kind of I think illustrates this point a little bit.
And this is the idea, not just that the stream is dangerous,
but as we go into this stream, we tend to become coarser gradually over time.
It gets worse and worse, as if the stream goes faster and faster
becomes more and more dangerous as we carry on.
So it's not just that we are going in a stream,
but the stream actually gets worse also as we go along.
And I'm sure you can probably relate to that to some extent, yeah.
In craving in life, sometimes we have kind of craving for refined things;
and sometimes that craving kind of becomes more and more obsessive,
it goes in the wrong direction,
we don't really find the satisfaction that we're looking for.
And because we don't find the satisfaction,
we try something that's more coarse, goes further,
takes the whole thing to another level,
and as we take this craving further to another level,
we are coarsening our minds, and we're kind of on a downward slope,
making things worse and worse basically.
And we can see this in the world, people are never really satisfied.
People never really feel that sense of okay, I’ve reached a limit.
And there's a beautiful sutta about this as well.
And this is a sutta which is slightly kind of mythological in content,
it's called the Aggañña Sutta,
found in the long discourses of the Buddha, number 27.
And this particular sutta is a sutta about beginnings.
It shows how the world kind of slides down from the beginning.
And of course, the world sliding down from the beginning
is another metaphor for the mind also sliding down,
becoming coarser, more obsessed, increasing these cravings as we go along.
One of the kind of beautiful things about this sutta,
it starts off by saying, this is about beginnings, right?
So beginnings is usually in religion means the beginning of the world.
So in Buddhism, what is the beginning of the world in Buddhism?
The beginning of the world is the end of the previous world, right?
That is the Buddhist idea.
So this sutta begins with the ending. This is kind of cool, this is
the way Buddhism talks about beginnings, it starts with endings.
So the previous world comes to an end.
And because the previous world comes to an end,
you have all these beings that exist in a very elevated and beautiful state,
because that is what happens when the world comes to an end in this way.
They exist in a very beautiful, elevated state,
where there is no craving, there's no desire.
The beautiful idea here is that they are feeding on bliss, pītibhakkhā
Isn't that a beautiful idea, feeding on bliss?
It’s this idea you don't need any nutriment from the outside,
you don't need any nutriment to support your body,
because you feed on bliss.
Bliss is what sustains you, bliss is what gives life meaning.
Forget about all this coarse stuff in the human realm.
This is the really refined stuff.
How does it go again? I can't remember.
Anyway, so starting in this very high realm, but then
as the previous universe comes to an end, the new universe starts.
It's like, kind of, one big bang after the other if you like.
It's kind of the Buddhist idea of things.
And then as the new world evolves,
yeah, these beings, when kind of the world becomes available,
they start to get reborn in slightly lower destinations.
And in this lower destinations, because the world evolves,
there is material things.
And when the material things of that world evolve,
part of those material things will seem delightful to these people.
Or these beings,
they are not people at this point, they are just beings,
feeding on bliss or whatever.
Most people don't feed on bliss, at least not all the time.
Maybe hopefully sometimes, not all the time.
And so the earth kind of appears, and all these material things appear,
and as these things appear,
they start to look out, and see ''Oh what might this be?
"What is going on here?"
And they go down to this earth, to this material substance,
and they break a piece off, and they think what might this be?
and they taste it.
And the moment they taste it, because the taste is so beautiful;
it's like.. the translation says, it's sweet like wild Manuka Honey,
or something like that. Beautiful taste.
At that moment, craving is born in that being.
And that's kind of extraordinary when you think about it.
Because here you have these beings who are completely content,
completely happy, feeding on bliss, but because the sense of self,
because there is a doer inside that makes people act,
even though there's nothing to act for, but the identifying with that doer
drives you on to do things.
And that activity that you do then gives rise to craving as a consequence.
So a person that had no craving, that was perfectly content,
that didn't needs anything in the whole world,
because of the restless nature of people or beings, craving arises.
And once that craving arises, because craving is coarse
compared to the very contented state of human beings,
their body becomes more coarse.
And as their body becomes coarse, the world around them becomes coarse.
Because the world around us is just a reflection of our own minds, in large part
depending on how you're reborn, and all these kinds of things,
but our experience of the world is reflected in our minds.
So the world becomes more coarse. And when the world becomes more coarse,
they get more craving, and it builds up, more and more craving,
eating new things, eventually they start putting up boundaries,
this is my stuff, I want to eat this.
And once they put up boundaries, they start stealing from each other,
when they start stealing from each other they start lying
because they're gonna get penalized.
You can see the coarseness is becoming worse and worse and worse,
driving on, until one day they say the lifespan has declined to five years,
and there's this sword, what they call the sword interval,
that is when they run after each other like wild beasts,
cutting each other down and killing each other,
kind of reach rock bottom,
and then things start to turn around and it goes up again.
But the nature of the mind is kind of going downwards,
spiraling out of control,
not really understanding that things are heading in the wrong direction,
trying to find satisfaction, when no satisfaction can really be found.
So this is an important aspect of this idea of the stream.
Notice that in yourself, because it can sometimes be easy to see
if you are too fixed on craving.
If you are not like that,
you can see it in people around us in the world very often.
So these are two ideas about the idea of going... this is the flow,
but I'm going to come to 'going against the flow' very soon.
That's really what this is all about.
It’s just kind of setting the scene for going against the flow.
So there's one more sutta that kind of illustrate, this point
about the flow of craving quite nicely,
in a slightly different way.
And this is one of my really favorite suttas.
Every sutta is my favorite; this is my kind of favorite favorite.
Not really, they are all favorites.
So this sutta is called the Raṭṭhapāla Sutta.
Raṭṭhapāla is a name of a person, he was called Raṭṭhapāla,
and in this Sutta this monk called Raṭṭhapāla, he goes to meet a king.
This king is called Koravya,
and so he meets this king, and this king is really old, he is about to die,
and he looks at Raṭṭhapāla, Raṭṭhapāla is a young man, he is already an Arahant.
And this King looks at this young men and asks
'Why have you gone forth?
You're young, you're healthy, you're in the prime of life,
your family is wealthy, you have all these relatives,
you have everything, everything anyone could want in life.
Why have you gone forth?
I would like to hear the secret behind this magic of the Buddha.”
The magic of the Buddha, that's what they call it, the magic,
they call it the converting magic of the Buddha,
because when the Buddha speaks, it's like, wow, okay,
I better become a monk straight away, or a nun.
So if you don't want to become a monk or nun after this talk,
it means that I have a long way to go before I reach the level of the Buddha!
Probably a very long way, actually.
So he speaks to Raṭṭhapāla, this king, and he says,
why on earth did you go forth?
This is kind of really fascinating, because if we get these teachings,
then maybe the chances are that we follow suit.
And the Buddha, not the Buddha, Raṭṭhapāla says,
"Well, there are four summaries of the Dhamma that made me become a monastic,
that made me go forth, and eventually becoming an Arahant,
a fully awakened person.
And he says, one of these summaries of the Dhamma is that the world is incomplete,
it is insatiate, it is a slave to craving.
The world is incomplete, insatiate, a slave to craving.
So what does that mean? What does it mean 'the world is incomplete?'
Well, the world is us.
Each one of us is like the world, the world is our world.
So beings are incomplete. What does that mean?
It means that we feel like we are not fulfilled, right?
It feels like there's something missing inside of us.
It feels like there is a hole that we need to fill up somehow within us.
And this is why we go out into the world.
This is why we get into relationships,
Relationship is precisely the idea of kind of forming something more than ourselves.
It is kind of a very important aspect of this idea of falling in love and
having a relationship.
It is an idea of feeling more complete
through someone else, with the help of someone else,
even though that obviously is quite dangerous,
because a relationships have to have an end to it, still that's what we do.
So all of these things that we're doing in life,
getting the right house, the right job, which is going to be really satisfactory,
the right kind of career,
all these things; getting popular in the world,
a very important one, all of these things, building up,
this is how we're going to feel complete.
This is kind of the idea in the world.
But here, Raṭṭhapāla says, the world is incomplete.
All of those things that we're seeking in the world
are never going to make us feel complete.
There's always going to be another desire behind that one.
There's always going to be more going on into the future.
There is no final satisfaction in that world.
In fact, there isn't any real satisfaction at all.
Often it's the opposite, there's actually more dissatisfaction,
because when you realize that it actually doesn't work out,
you just crave even more, for even more things,
things that are even more coarse, and you don't actually get anywhere.
The world is incomplete.
It is insatiate.
There is no satisfaction, because there is no completion.
There is no satisfaction.
We are the slave of craving.
It is a beautiful little saying, 'you are the slave of craving'.
Very often, we think the exact opposite.
We think we are the masters of craving.
Actually we enjoy craving,
because craving will get us what we want, right?
If we crave, we will go into the world, we will fulfill ourselves,
and we'll get what we actually want in this life.
So craving is good.
One of the really beautiful things the Buddha points out in another sutta,
I think it's called Chachakkasutta MN 146 I think (148) if you want to look it up.
And in that Sutta, the Buddha says that not only do we enjoy craving,
we identify with craving. We think that we are craving.
How can that be, when craving is often so painful and so restless?
And the reason is why we identify with craving
is because we are doers, we identify with doing.
Have you ever noticed how you identify with doing,
how you feel alive when you do,
how you feel you are expressing yourself when you do things?
This is a very important part in our modern culture,
the idea of expressing ourselves,
because what you are doing there is you're expressing,
you are using a side of the ego that indulges in the activity of doing.
We identify with the doing itself.
And because you identify with the doing, craving is your friend.
Because craving is what makes you do.
Doing and craving are two sides of the same coin.
Without the craving you can't really do very much.
So that's why we also identify with the craving itself.
But the Buddha turns it around, instead of identifying with craving,
craving is the slave driver.
Craving is the thing that makes you restless.
Craving is the thing that always drives you on
from one thing to the other one, without end.
You can never rest when there is craving.
Craving says, do this, and you says, yes, master, please,
let me run quickly to this goal, whatever it might be.
And you follow along with craving without really stopping and thinking
whether it's a good idea.
You are the slave of craving. And how can we understand that?
Well, the one of the ways of understanding that, of course,
is through meditation practice.
As you become peaceful in meditation, as things start to calm down,
you start to understand this duality of craving and peace,
and how they are two opposites.
How one is really delightful,
while the other one is inherently just agitated,
restlessness, driving on, never being able to rest,
thinking that you're going somewhere worthwhile,
when actually it is just more of the same down the road
again and again and again.
Just occurred to me
how we often get complaints that Buddhism is so pessimistic,
maybe I should stop talking like this, this is kind of going really ........
We have to come to the solution, right?
So much negativity, wow, that's really bad.
So how do we resolve all of this?
How do we kind of.. what can we do about all of this?
The slave, this idea of a stream going on and kind of moving us into the future.
How can we deal with this?
And how to deal with this, actually,
first of all, we have to kind of understand some of these streams,
and how to think about them.
So, I'll talk a little bit about kind of streams from different angles,
and then see what we can do about them.
And then I'm going to look at the very end,
towards how we can enter an alternative stream.
That's where it gets really exciting.
What is the alternative stream?
Is there a different stream that maybe not heading towards the crocodiles,
but it's heading towards happiness, joy, bliss, insight, understanding,
wisdom, all of these kinds of things.
That is the cool kind of stream where we really want to go.
So one of the ways of thinking about the streams of the Dhamma
is what is sometimes called in the Suttas the Aṭṭha-loka-dhamma;
the eight worldly conditions, or the eight worldly things.
And these things are, one of these things is like
praise and blame is one of them, praise and blame,
popularity, unpopularity, happiness and suffering,
gain and loss. So these are the eight of them.
So these are eight aspects of the streams of the world.
And they're kind of very interesting, because they basically summarize
the sort of things that we are interested in the world
that make the world come alive for us.
And the first one of those is praise and blame.
And this is a very interesting one,
because it is so addictive to be praised, and people often live to be praised,
and that's what they want in their life.
But of course, you realize very soon
if you're trying to get praised all the time that you can't control it,
and actually the world doesn't work like that.
So if you are on this boat kind of rejoicing and being praised or whatever,
soon enough you're going to have suffering as a consequence,
because there's no way you're going to be able to sustain
all that praise all the time.
So one of the ways that I like to think about the idea of
praise and blame in my own life is the idea that
most people who praise me or who blame me,
actually often that is for such superficial, irrelevant things.
And most of the people who praise
and blame you, what do they understand anyway
about what is really worthwhile in the world?
That's what I think..
I never say it, but I think it. I just said it right now. I forgot.
But these are things you can think,
but you have to be careful with saying them;
otherwise it might become problematic.
There are things in Buddhism you have to keep kind of private.
But it is true though, isn't it?
Most people in the world don't really understand
what is really praiseworthy, and what is really blameworthy.
So, very often we get praised for things and blamed
that are completely irrelevant, that don't really matter at all.
So why do we get attached to all of these things that don’t really matter?
Someone praises you for, oh, that's a beautiful shawl you have,
it is quite nice, actually.
So don't attach, right?
So we say these things and
actually it doesn't really matter whether you have a beautiful shawl or not.
It doesn't matter whatever you are doing,
oh, you got a nice new car or whatever.
These things are kind of completely irrelevant,
yet we attach to these kinds of things.
So the first thing to understand is that most people don't understand
what is really praiseworthy, or what is blameworthy.
And because of that, most of the time, just forget about it. It doesn't matter.
What you should ask yourself, you should ask,
is the praise something really useful and really good?
And if it is, okay, then fine,
and if it is true. Okay? No, issue.
If you get blamed, ask yourself, Is there something going on there
which is worthwhile, okay, then take it on board
and maybe correct your direction a little bit.
But lot of the time, there's no need to pay much attention to these things.
The only time you really should pay attention
is if someone like the Buddha praises you.
If the Buddha says, 'Good on you'.
He wouldn't say that, but something similar like that,
'you're practicing well', then, of course,
that's when you should listen,
because that is someone who understands what is worthwhile.
But what you find is some of the most famous teachers in the world,
teachers you may think might be Arahants,
might be stream enterers, might have some deep insight,
they don't praise very much at all, nor do they blame very much.
They encourage you more just by being kind, by being gentle,
by kind of saying things that ..... sometimes they might praise you,
but it's not a lot of praise coming out,
nor is there much blame. It’s just a gentle kind of encouragement.
How is your meditation going?
Oh, I'm getting some happiness and joy.
Okay, very good carry on.
Ajahn Brahm says that, right? Very good, carry on!
He says that all the time.
So this is kind of the idea,
because I think they know that if you get praised too much, or blame too much,
you just attach to these things, you don't use those things too much.
So, this is kind of the idea, how we deal with praise and blame in the world.
We look at the person who's blaming us, or praising us,
are they really worthwhile, taking them seriously or not?
Most of the time, not necessarily.
Let's praise each other instead for the things that are really worthwhile.
So if you see people in the community who are doing well, who are being kind,
that is a good opportunity to praise them
for practicing the spiritual life, for doing the right thing.
That is a great opportunity.
I mean, praise each other for the nice shawls as well, absolutely.
Be kind to each other,
then it is really up to the person who is receiving it to decide
whether it's important or not.
Don't be afraid of praise, praising others, please do so,
it's a beautiful thing to do,
when we do it in the right way without any ego involved.
But it's also our job to know when the praise really matters or not.
The other thing of these eight worldly dhammas is the idea of
being popular or unpopular, or being famous or living in obscurity.
This is another one.
And again, the idea in Buddhism is that a lot of the things that we think of
popularity in the world, again, is very superficial.
People are popular for kind of crazy things in the world.
Some people are famous for being famous, as they say.
They don't really have any good reasons for it.
Or they are famous just for being a movie star.
Ok, you are a movie star, so you become famous automatically.
Or you are rich, if you're rich you become famous.
If you're very poor, you also become famous, right?
Like us, we are
either very rich, or very poor, the two ends of the kind of scale.
So someone like Ajahn Brahm, very famous, not because he's rich,
but actually, in part because he's poor, right? Yes, that's true, isn't it?
It's actually true that because.....
he has nothing, and yet he is one of the most happiest persons imaginable,
at least that I know, always very happy.
That's kind of what makes life interesting,
when you see that contrast between the absolute having nothing,
and the happiness on the other side.
That's what makes the dhamma so interesting.
So again, all of this popularity is often so superficial.
So if we want to be popular,
you should become popular because you are a good person,
because you have metta, because you have kindness,
because you have compassion for people in the world.
That is the kind of popularity we should seek for.
And if you don't become popular when you live like that,
then popularity is irrelevant,
it doesn't matter. Let the popularity go,
because actually, it doesn't matter.
There are some beautiful verses in the suttas that says something like,
if you can find a wise companion, then you should travel together
and kind of develop together in the practice.
But if you cannot find a wise companion, if all you can find is a fool,
then it's better to go alone, like an elephant in the forest
or something like that.
This idea that all this popularity is really irrelevant.
In fact, when you really understand what the dhamma is about,
popularity is a hassle.
You want to be more unpopular. Not me, I'm not so advanced yet,
but some other people, right?
Sometimes I listen to Ajahn Brahm, sometimes he says things that
people would think he's crazy, it's kind of completely upside down
of what you normally would think.
So Ajahn Brahm says,
if we do this, there will be fewer people coming to the monastery. Let's do this!
(laughs)
And I said "No, Ajahn don't, that's bad. We shouldn't do that.
It's good that people come to the monastery".
He said, no, we should have fewer people.
He doesn't actually mean it 100%, right? He wants people to come to the monastery
to be able to share the dhamma and, rejoice and offering together.
Of course he does.
But he's making a point that a lot of people is often kind of problematic
from a dhamma point of view.
If your meditation is really deep, you want to be in solitude.
In the suttas you find cases where the Buddha says,
when I come out of a deep meditation,
when people come to visit me, I talk to them in a way that puts them off.
Yeah, that's what the Buddha says,
actually, he wants them to leave as quickly as possible
because of the happiness of solitude.
So, that's kind of the ultimate point of the idea of popularity and being famous.
Actually, it is a hassle.
There are some other beautiful suttas where the Buddha says,
let me never become famous.
Fame is kind of bad all the way down, because it just leads to problems.
And what happened? He became famous.
That's how you become famous, because you don't want to become famous.
Because that is so counterintuitive. That's kind of the thing about the Buddha.
So, again, understand that popularity is not really all it is cracked up to be.
So how can we deal with a life? and I mentioned this here the other week,
when I was here last time.
How can we live a life .. we kind of are in solitude maybe,
we become less dependent on people around us,
we don't care about popularity so much,
and we know that in the present day there's a lot of loneliness in the world.
During the pandemic it was quite bad.
Many young people being lonely apparently,
old people being lonely sitting in an old age homes,
not knowing what to do with themselves.
And the answer to that is very simple.
The answer is we have to develop more metta, more kindness.
Because loneliness is a feeling of not being connected.
That's what loneliness is.
You're sitting by yourself; this small little world of mine,
not connected to the world outside.
But the best way of being connected to the world is not by being popular.
It is not by having large amounts of friends.
Because all of those things will eventually let you down.
Eventually, you are with people,
and sometimes they say the wrong thing,
they're not kind to you or whatever.
The best way of never being lonely is to have metta, the kindness,
the goodness, the love, compassion in your heart.
If you have that, you never feel lonely, because you don't feel separated.
The idea of love is the opposite of being separated.
You always feel connected to the whole world,
even when you sit in your little kuti, your little hut, all by yourself.
So please do that.
Practice that metta and you become independent, you become powerful,
you gain the ability to just be completely by yourself.
Isn't that a beautiful idea?
Instead of depending on people all the time,
depending on relationships, depending on being popular or whatever,
you can actually hang out by yourself and be completely content,
actually more content than when you hangout with other people.
So develop that kindness; is what the Buddha is saying.
It starts off by having metta, kindness by body and speech,
then kindness in thoughts, then kindness in meditation.
It builds up, one upon the other,
until you start to feel connected with the whole world around you.
That is where you want to go.
Then you are popular in a really deep sense of the word.
So what about the last four of these;
the happiness and suffering and gain and loss?
Maybe we can look at those together.
And, again, the way to think about gain and loss,
which I really like, the idea of kind of getting things in life,
material things or relationships, or status or whatever it is.
One of the beautiful similes of the Buddha,
which I always found very, very powerful;
is the idea, actually it is the idea that all of these things are borrowed.
These are borrowed things.
We have them for a time and then they will go.
There's one nice sutta which has been translated as 'themes' into English.
There’s five themes, five themes, that a monk or a nun;
or actually a nun or a monk, no, actually a lay woman and a lay man,
a nun or a monk or a monastic whatever.
That's how it goes, a laywoman and a layman.
and then I think it says one gone-forth, I don't think it says nun,
i think it says one gone forth, should reflect on, all the time.
Abhiṇha means frequently. Five things,
And one of those things, those five things;
the rest of the five, they would come another time
so that you will have a reason to come back to the Buddhist center here.
So this is just ... So I will tell you one of them.
One of them is that
'everything that is dear and beloved to me must become otherwise,
must become separated from me'.
Everything that is dear and beloved to me must become otherwise,
must become separated from me.
It's very powerful saying.
What is it that is dear and beloved to you?
What are the things in your life that would be most difficult to lose?
And, of course, one of them very often is like our closest relationships.
If you have a good relationship with your boyfriend, or girlfriend
or your husband and wife, if that relationship is really good,
then of course, it also means very strong kind of bonding very often.
And therefore the consequences down the track are often also
going to be quite difficult to deal with.
So what are the things that you are afraid to lose?
Look at that. And then when you look at that, and you understand
the problem that arises from that, you actually...
and the way to do that is to have this idea of the idea of the borrowed goods.
The idea of how all of these things now in our lives are actually borrowed.
I only have it for a time.
This is my beautiful relationship with this woman or this man
or this daughter or son or this mother and father, this friend or whatever it is.
It's a wonderful relationship, but it's a borrowed relationship.
It will only last for so long, and then it will be gone.
How do we treat borrowed things in the world?
Borrowed things, you think about them in a different way, right?
If you borrow a car, you rent a car compared to actually buying one,
it's a different feeling.
You treat a rented car different from one that...I was going to say 'is yours'
but 'you think is your own' is a much better way of putting it.
You treat it differently.
So all the things in that world that we actually are borrowed,
once you start to look at it like that,
your relationship to those things is different.
You don't hold on so much anymore.
You look at it in a different way.
You realize you're going to have to find a deeper satisfaction and happiness
somewhere else,
because those borrowed goods are inherently unreliable.
The things in your life, your house, your car, everything you own,
your career, your status in this world,
all the people that are closest to you,
all of those things are ultimately borrowed goods.
And once you start to see that,
you start to treat these things in a different way.
You start to look for real meaning, completeness, satisfaction, contentment,
somewhere else in life.
You start to lean towards the spiritual path.
And of course, the power of the spiritual path is that
all of those things that are borrowed goods,
they become more meaningful as well, as you practice a spiritual path,
because we're able to treat them more from a spiritual point of view.
It makes them more meaningful.
It makes the relationships better actually down the track.
It makes your ability even to enjoy the worldly goods around you
more wholesome, more pure, and therefore better as a consequence.
This is the paradox of the spiritual path.
It looks like I'm saying all of these negative things
about all the things in the world,
but actually, if you practice the spiritual path in the right way,
the things of the world actually become more meaningful.
They start to take on a new lease of life, so to speak,
and they actually start to be able to use them in a proper way,
a way that does not lead to just problems down the track.
So you start living with kindness.
You start living a life where you really care for the people around you.
You try to say good things, kinds things, gentle things,
things that unify people, things that are meaningful, purposeful,
that actually go somewhere.
You start to treat people with compassion and understanding.
When you have an opportunity,
you always do an act of kindness around you.
I must admit that I'm very impressed with our president,
because I'm part of the Committee of this Buddhist Society, I get all the emails
being sent by the committee members.
And he's really good with his words and his emails,
I always think, wow, I should kind of up my game a little bit
to be as good as Hock Chin.
Very nice emails.
If you get an email from Hock Chin…
ask him, please send me an email because it's gonna make your day.
Sorry, Hock Chin.... (Ajahn laughs),
I'm being naughty now.
We start to think in the right way about how to use speech,
how to use emails; all of these things in a positive way,
to give other people a gift.
I really like this idea, how speech can give gifts to people all the time.
If we use speech wisely,
saying something nice, saying something gentle,
something that goes to the heart of other people,
there's something beautiful about that.
So often we speak, we have that opportunity.
If that desire to speak gently is not there, hold back, don't speak now.
Wait till desire actually arises.
And this is how, gradually, things start to change.
Things start to become meaningful.
You start to think about the world in a new way.
You start to think about people in a new way,
More compassion because you understand we're all trapped
in this suffering together. Everyone is there.
And it's no wonder people do bad things,
when they have so much suffering in their life..
Of course they do bad things.
Come here, I'll give you a hug. Not me, someone else.
I don't usually hug people.
Well, really, I hug my mother, that's about it.
So we do the right thing in this way. Thinking about the world in the right way.
As we do that, this is what it means to paddle against that stream.
Remember the stream in the beginning,
leading to the saltwater crocodiles right?
Now we're paddling away from the saltwater crocodiles.
The saltwater crocodiles are fading away in the rear mirror.
I'm not sure if the rafts have mirrors these days,
but if it has a mirror, they're kind of fading away in the rear mirror.
(Ajahn making a gesture of relief) Phew! Saltwater crocodiles.
I’m getting close, that was like a close call.
But anyway, so you have just made it. And you paddle against the stream.
And as you paddle against the stream, the current becomes weaker.
The current becomes weaker and weaker and weaker
as you paddle against it... because you are reducing your defilements.
You're becoming more kind,
the craving, the anger, the normal habits of your mind are weakening as you do this.
I don't know if you have seen this in your life,
if you have lived a spiritual life for a long time,
but I've seen it very clearly in my own life,
how these things weaken over time,
and actually you become a more good-hearted person over time,
gradually, gradually developing.
And then eventually there comes a day,
when eventually you are so pure, it's almost no effort at all
to paddle that raft anymore.
And suddenly one day, you have a deep meditation, a deep insight
into the nature of reality. And boom! you enter a new stream,
going in exactly the opposite direction, going towards, not a
whirlpool, not a shark, not a monster, not a saltwater crocodile,
not even a freshwater crocodile;
but going towards all the good things that you ever wanted in life.
Everything you always were looking for, you've entered the stream of the Dhamma,
moving in the right direction. And now there is no turning back.
There's only one goal for you, and that is
the highest happiness of the world.
And that is where, that right stream, the stream of the Dharma
as opposed to the stream of defilements,
the stream that we're normally in, that is where it's heading for you.
All you have to do is hang out on the path,
listen to the beautiful word of the Buddha again, and again and again,
and gradually make this change.
One day, you too may enter that stream, heading for happiness all the way.
Okay, that's the talk for this evening, thank you.
Sadhu Sadhu Sadhu
Okay, everyone, so are there any questions? Yes, please, Mr. President,
Yeah. So for the New Year, they set goals,
it can be financial, or whatever,
so what is your advice from spiritual point of view?
What goal we should have? Yes, that is a very, very good point,
I should have talked about New Year's resolutions tonight.
That was a missed opportunity.
I should have talked about that; but now I have the chance,
because you've asked this question.
So what should be our New Year's resolution?
What should be our goals as Buddhists?
And increasing your bank account; I wouldn't recommend that one.
It's not really a Buddhist kind of way.
I mean, it's fine if your bank account increase,
but that shouldn't be a goal as such.
But I think, there can be many kinds of goals,
but I think one of the important things when we have a resolution
is to make it not too arduous, so we're actually able to fulfill it.
I mean, one of the things that we see every year
when people take up these resolutions, is that they fail.
As soon as they start, they can; but after a week or two,
too difficult, can't do it.
So if you're going to do a resolution like meditation for example,
start really low, put the bar as low as you can;
five minutes a week, right? Everyone can do five minutes a week.
And if you can't do that, okay, give up.
Because the thing is that if you start low,
and you have success and you enjoy it, it will encourage you, right?
Then you will, of course, it's very easy to up that.
And then you can do five minutes twice a week.
And eventually we do 10 minutes every day maybe,
and you can build up in that way.
So put the bar very low;
that's kind of the obvious thing, I think for New Year’s resolutions.
But the most important thing on the spiritual path,
the thing that kind of undergirds everything else.
Actually, there's many different ways of looking at this;
but the most important thing in the spiritual practice is always kindness.
And the ability to live with kindness moment to moment,
day in day out, year in year out,
that is what is going to make this path really progresses.
I'm always surprised when I read the suttas, how everything
is kind of founded on kindness.
Meditation is, according to the suttas, an automatic process.
And you may wonder, how can that possibly be, you may wonder,
because you sit down and the mind is always...
not an automatic process at all, it's not going anywhere very often.
Well, the reason why it isn't going anywhere
is because the sīla, the virtue, the kindness is not profound enough yet.
That is the reason.
So one of the most important things in life
for anyone who's really serious about this practice,
is to put a lot of emphasis into the idea of kindness,
moment to moment, verbal, bodily and mental.
As soon as you see that you get a negative thought about someone,
ask, 'How can I think about this person differently?'
How can I see them with compassion?
How can I see their good qualities?
So that is what you should, that is to me, the most important one.
Get that right, everything flows from there.
Anyone else like to say anything here?
Maybe this lady in front here, first of all.
This lady in the middle, I think, in the center of the universe.
(not audible)
Thank you for the talk
When you're talking about the stream,
is it almost like a metaphor for the links of dependent origination?
Dependent Origination.. yeah, I would say it is that as well,
because that kind of shows you how the stream works.
So, there are feelings, because we feel the world we crave.
Because we crave the world we pick things up, all kinds of things
metaphorically and literally.
And because of that, we make kamma.
Because we relate to the things that we pick up we make kamma,
through that making of kamma we are reborn according to that kamma and craving.
So indeed, it is very closely related to the idea of a stream; absolutely!
Yeah, well done. You have passed; I was going to say 101,
but this is like 104 maybe.
(Ajahn laughs) That's good.
Me again Ajahn Brahmali, A very interesting talk.
Okay, good.
Ajahn Brahmali, when you talk about streaming,
you mentioned about the craving and the eight winds,
is that streaming related to the stream entrance?
Yes it is, exactly. Sotāpanna 'Sotā' is a stream; āpanna means attain;
one who has attained the stream.
So once you become a stream-enter,
that is when you go the stream of the dhamma; Dhamma sotā
and you head to awakening, you are heading to Nibbana,
whether you want to or not.
But I'm sure you will want to, so you'll be fine.
What came to my mind when talking about streaming,
I was thinking of the Buddha,
Buddha was telling us we can read his teachings;
we can hear his teaching, but that's not enough.
He asked us to interact with his teachings.
So the interaction is that streaming isn't t?
Interact with the teachings.
Our mind, our feelings, all these things that you mentioned about...
you see what I mean?
Yes you can interact..
I think I would just....
I would say that interaction to me is just the idea of doing the teachings,
of following the teachings. That's what I would call that.
And you can call it interaction in one way.
One of the ways of interacting is to gain some joy out of the fact
that you have the Buddha as your teacher.
We don't fully understand who the Buddha is.
If we really understood who the Buddha was,
you would have such incredible joy that we have such a teacher.
Because it is an extraordinary thing to have someone like a Buddha in the world.
And that is to me, interaction, because then you're literally feeding off
the fact that you have the Buddha and the Dhamma as your teachings.
The reason why I asked is I also trying to link what you said..streaming...
An Interesting talk, Thank you
Excellent Eddy. Thank you. Anyone else? No one else?
Everyone is quiet. Okay. Very good.
So let's take a few from overseas.
So we have a question from Gloria Wong.
People always say that the Buddha is kind
but I can't feel his kindness in the suttas. Why is that?
Well, I think sometimes you can, sometimes you can see the kindness in the suttas.
There are some very touching suttas with the Buddha,
and one of them is where the Buddha finds a monk with dysentery.
Dysentery is a very filthy illness,
everything kind of comes out of your body.
And the Buddha together with Venerable Ananda,
they clean up this monk, yeah, it's kind of a very powerful sutta.
So you do see that kindness sometimes.
But I think a problem with the suttas is that the suttas are really just ...
remember they are like distilled essence of the Dhamma.
These have been refined over many, many centuries.
In the beginning, the word of the Buddha was what they had,
and then it was refined and systematized to some extent,
and then we have the suttas coming from that.
They have taken away so much of the human element in the suttas,
and it has become like a kind of prose,
the teachings of the Buddha on how to practice the path.
There's very little kind of emotion and human interaction in the suttas.
So, sometimes there is and sometimes you can see that coming through,
but very often there is not.
So they can often seem a bit dry.
But if you look carefully, I think you will see the Buddha, the human being,
the Buddha underneath the surface,
and I think you're able to see a lot of kindness and compassion there,
if you look at the suttas in the right way.
Remember all the teachings of the suttas are an expression of that kindness really,
because the Buddha is showing people the path to the highest happiness.
What more can you give anyone in the world
than the highest happiness? It's the highest gift, right? .
You can't give anyone a higher gift than the highest happiness.
So this is what every sutta is about, that gift of the highest happiness.
And once you see that, you will see every sutta actually is
through and through kindness.
Okay, another one from someone called Ne Torre mo JD
that's an interesting name. Okay, hello....
So anyway, your question is how to deal with negative cravings?
Any concrete practices needed to accept and have positive thoughts of it?
Often cravings bring satisfaction and happiness.
I am not sure what you mean by negative cravings.
Do you mean cravings to do bad stuff?
Or do you mean ... what exactly do you mean by negative cravings?
So I think one of the,
like so many things on the Buddhist path;
if it really is negative, and if it is bad kamma,
then of course you just have to restrain yourself
and you have to see the danger in going there
and look towards the positive things,
like with so many other things. Keep the five precepts,
because if you don't keep the five precepts, you're gonna break them.
It's like your determination to keep them basically,
that's what I would call a negative craving.
So if you want to kill someone, please don't kill anyone, because bad idea.
And try to go even further than that,
because that's not enough, just not to kill anyone,
that's not going to get you all that far.
Try to take it further.
So first of all, try to kind of restrain those negative things.
Don't follow them, know that they are bad.
If you see them in your mind, just leave them in your mind,
but don't follow those things. That's the first thing.
The second thing is not to judge yourself.
Because very often, when we say we don't want to go there,
we judge ourselves very harshly.
I shouldn't think like this, I shouldn't do that.
But please don't do that.
Because you, every one of us,
we are the sum of the conditioning that has worked on us
for innumerable lifetimes.
We are built up to be like this.
And because we have become like this, we can't really help those things.
They are there. They're part of what has actually come to be
through all these conditioning processes.
So don't judge yourself. Instead be kind to yourself,
because you are the victim of those cravings.
You are the victim of those bad habits. Far better to see yourself as a victim.
It's not anyone else who is the perpetrator,
there is no perpetrator, but you are still the victim.
And we are all a bit like that.
And once you understand that you are the victim of these things,
then you start to think "Well, what is the way out"?
Then you can look at it neutrally.
You don't react in a negative way, which destroys the ability for having insight.
Instead you become neutral,
and you say, let me look at this thing carefully with mindfulness
and see what the cause is, what the problem is,
and then when I understand that, then I can start to shift direction,
I can start to understand, why is it that I have these negative cravings?
What is driving this process?
Maybe it's just foolishness.
And one day it will just switch off like that (Ajahn snaps his fingers),
because you have understood the problem.
Often cravings bring satisfaction and happiness,
Yes, often they do bring satisfaction and happiness,
and this is part of the problem. Because this is why we follow them, right?
So you have to remember the downside.
It's only when you remember the downside that you can steer in the right direction.
And the Buddha talks about this in the suttas,
he talks about the benefit of something, the downside or something
and then the escape.
Asadha, adhinava, nissarana;
three factors that he talks about everywhere in the suttas.
And the downside is always greater than the upside.
That's why we have all those saltwater crocodiles.
I love the saltwater crocodiles. Don't you think they're pretty cool?
I really find that really cool.
Because you have to be Australian to understand that.
I'm Australian enough to understand the meaning of that.
I'm really kind of proud of that. So I thought that was really cool.
Okay, anyway. Next one.
This is someone who calls themselves Vegan Kind; Vegan Kind, okay.
Is that your real name or kind of your pen name, so to speak? Anyway..
The question--when I create, I suffer as a result of identification with it,
and attachment to it; the final result of a project?
How can I think about things more wisely in this respect?
That's a very good question.
Because you identify with things and you create things then you
kind of have a problem down the track.
So what you have to do is that you have to do things
not because you want to build something, but because you want to live well.
Whenever you do something, do it because you want to be kind to the world;
because you want to leave something for someone else
out of generosity or kindness.
That's why you should do things in this life.
Not because it is something necessarily for you.
And the best example for me of this, this is in a little book called
The Karuna Virus which we have published in
connection with the corona pandemic and has stories about Ajahn Brahm,
and one of the stories in there about Ajahn Brahm,
which maybe not that many people had heard until that book came out.
This is a story of the fire that we had at Bodhinyana Monastery in 1991.
By 1991, Ajahn Brahm had worked on that monastery day and night,
Ajahn Brahm was, he still is, an incredibly hard worker.
And in those days, even more hard working,
because his stomach wasn't in the way for all the hard work,
so it was easier for him to kind of work properly.
So he worked really, really hard.
Also he is very intelligent, he picks up things very fast
because of his, whatever it is background, or kamma or whatever.
So he built up this monastery, worked seven days a week, sometimes
having flood lights to be able to see at night, and all these kinds of things.
Yeah, Main Hall, Dana Sala, and this was his life's work.
Eight years of work in this monastery.
And then comes the fire.
Fire comes.. this is like the biggest bushfire..
That day was the hottest day so far in Perth area, 46 point something degrees,
super, super hot and the fire comes.
And of course when a fire comes with that heat, in Western Australia,
in the middle of summer, that was the 30th of January.
In the middle of summer, everything is kind of dry as bones.
And really, really bad.
And of course, everyone says everything is gonna go,
this is it.
Everything is going to be kind of gone.
And of course most people, if your life's work is going to be gone.
If you spent eight years or something, working day and night
to build something, if that is gonna go, you feel a sense of despair.
Oh, no, this is terrible. What am I going to do?
And you kind of go crazy, maybe you cry, maybe you shout,
maybe you do bad things as a consequence.
People do bad things when these things happen.
And so, what happened with Ajahn Brahm was kind of really fascinating.
This is what he told me personally.
Of course he might deny that is exactly what he said;
but this is how I remember it anyway.
What he said was ‘at that moment, when I realized what was going on,
I was able to let it go, just like that. (Ajahn snaps his fingers)
And when I eventually got out of the monastery to a safe place,
I knew that if the monastery would burn down completely
and be gone on the following day,
I would just go back and start from square one.
And he said the reason is,
‘because I didn't build the monastery to create a monastery,
I built the monastery to create something good in the world,
out of generosity, out of kindness for future generations,
to build up Buddhism in Western Australia.
It was an act of kindness.
The result in terms of bricks and mortar was not important.
What was important was the act of kindness.
And that act of kindness could always be carried on, on the following day.
That is the kind of attitude, right?
You're doing things not because they mean anything in the material realm.
You do things because they mean something in the spiritual realm.
They are acts of kindness, act of generosity,
acts of purity of the heart.
Then you can never go wrong, then you never lose out.
So if you can use a little bit of that kind of attitude in your creative work,
then I think you will gradually move in a good direction,
and you won't attach quite so much perhaps. So best of luck.
A couple of more quick questions.
Next one is from YC Tan.
Dear Ajahn, how do we help siblings and parents who live together,
but constantly quarrel over material things?
We encourage kindness, prayer, volunteering, etc. But nothing is working.
This is a standard question I get so often.
How do we change other people? That's kind of the question.
How do we change other people?
And that's kind of always the question.
So then, the best way to change others, of course is to change yourself.
You are the one, the only person you can really change in the world.
And this is kind of one of the harsh realities of life,
is that our ability even to change ourselves is so difficult, right?
If you try to change, try to be more kind, try to be less whatever,
actually it's very hard.
If I say to you 'be less angry', 'OK!'
It takes time. It's difficult to do that.'
And so even though it is so hard to change ourselves,
we demand that other people change.
But remember that they are in deep ruts,
they are in deep habits. It is difficult for them to change too.
If they are used to arguing with each other,
they probably enjoy that argument to some extent.
That's how people are. We enjoy an argument; we enjoy being angry,
we enjoy doing all kinds of crazy stuff in this world.
So the most important thing for you to do very often
for other people is to be the example,
the example of harmony,
the example person who shows an alternative way of being.
That is one of the most important things.
And then as you do that, gradually, gradually, things may turn around.
And of course, if you have the ability to kind of guide them towards
some kind of dhamma teaching, that's wonderful.
Remember, because you are the son and the sibling,
very often as the son and the sibling, they're not gonna listen to you.
Because parents don't often listen to the children all that much.
Or siblings... yeah, you're just my brother, shut up.
I don't want to hear from you. Sometimes it's a bit like that.
But if you get an authority figure that they trust,
this is one of the critical things. Get an authority figure,
get Ajahn Bram, right? Invite Ajahn Brahm to a Dana.
Actually I shouldn't say that poor Ajahn Brahm.
It's very difficult to get Ajahn Brahm for danas these days.
Get some.. get them to listen to an authority figure.
And if you can, invite them to a dana or at least come to somewhere
Ajahn Brahm is available for receiving the food. And then go up to Ajahn Brahm
and give a leading question to Ajahan Brahm
''Ajahn, should there be harmony or quarreling in a family?
What do you think? Can you talk about that? Something like that.
And let's see what happens.
And Ajahn will probably crack a few good jokes,
everyone will laugh, maybe that will kind of .. and a bit of good dhamma in there.
And then you might be in business; something like that.
But don't expect change. I think this is the important thing.
Try to help them, encourage them, but if you expect change,
you're asking for suffering for yourself.
Last question, which is good, because I'm getting a bit tired now.
This is from Richard Upton Pickman from Scotland,
I listen to you Ajahn, I want to leave my worldly life behind and become a monk.
But! ... but .. I am married. And I don't want to break my commitment.
How do I reconcile these cravings?
Okay, so you have to make the most; if you don't want to break a commitment,
you have to make the most out of your married life. Yeah.
But the ideal thing to do, and this is the ideal thing to do,
your wife also wants to become a nun. She becomes a nun, you become a monk.
That is the ideal. That's what I really recommend.
So your main job is now to convince your wife that nuns are really cool,
they are the best. Yeah.
Nuns are kind of.. this is the path to the highest happiness.
And that may be impossible. Maybe your wife is not up for that.
But anyway, that's kind of the ideal.
And we have some examples of that here in Perth.
We have one monk who was a monk at Bodhinyana Monastery
and a Nun at Dhammasara Monastery, and they decided to do just that,
they became a monk and a nun,
and I think they are much more happy now than they were before.
That's kind of a good, good news.
There are some very interesting stories from the suttas.
According to the story, Venerable Maha Kassapa,
one of the great monks at the time of the Buddha,
he was married, he had this very wonderful wife before, he was (married).
They decided to split up, she became a nun, he became a monk.
And I think they both became Arahants, fully enlightened.
So that is what I recommend you to do.
And if that doesn't work out,
the kind of the second option,
this is a low, much, much lower option, is way down the scale.
This is what you really should do if you have tried everything
to make your wife into a Nun
and if that doesn't work, you really have to try hard,
then the second option- make the most of your married life.
A married life lived well can take you a long way on the path
if you do it in a good way.
I see a lot of married people around the world who are very, very good people
and they are using the married life to progress in the Dhamma.
If you do that well, do that in the right way, you can go a long way.
But still better to become a monk and nun.
(Ajahn laughs)
OK, Thank you everyone for this evening.
So let's pay respects to the Buddha Dhamma Sangha
before we call it a day.