WEBVTT
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Stretch and cough as loud as you like now.
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You're not going to disturb anybody.
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Scratch knees, move your legs, move your bum.
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Get yourselves comfortable for the next
part of this evening's festivities.
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The Dhamma talk.
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Excellent. So for this evening's Dhamma talk
I had all sorts of ideas what I was
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going to speak about,
actually not many of them,
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but it's quite obvious what I should speak about tonight,
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because it's a problem which is common to so many
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people and I've just been feeling it and
overcoming it though this meditation: tiredness.
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Now, 3, 4, 5 years ago,
I cannot remember when,
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that's the trouble with living in the
present moment, as a monk we don't get
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dementia, we just get
living-in-the-present-momentness
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[laughts] so we don't really think too
much about past and future.
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So other people say - when did that happen?
"In the past somewhere"
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we don't exactly remember when,
and it's not as if you don't want
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to remember, it's just the efficiency of
the brain and living in this moment
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rather than always living in that past.
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But a few years ago when I was teaching overseas as I often do,
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I was invited to spend the day at a
youth seminar in Kuala Lumpur,
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it's a very interesting occassion,
about 400-500 young people 15-25,
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doing all sorts of interesting stuff,
one of the things they were doing
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is that they asked all the people there,
what is your most difficult emotion
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as 15-25 year old, mostly Chinese
Buddhists over in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
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What do you find most difficult of all
in life?
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And the answer which came up was tiredness.
I never expected that before,
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but once they said that it was
quite obvious why people are tired even
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when they are in the late teen years, 15 to 25.
You can remember your time as a
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young man, a young woman, the pressure
is really on you.
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You have to do well at school,
your parents and teachers and
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friends say it's really important,
so you have to do really well at homework
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and get good grades.
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That's one of the problems with young people,
parents tell me off for this,
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but I'm supporting young people, it doesn't matter so much what
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grades you get at school.
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People have found, Daniel Goldman,
emotional intelligence, found out
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that the grades you get at school and
University, all those certificates,
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they don't really count for much when it
comes to success in life.
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Success is not guaranteed by doing
well at school. Something else is.
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That's why I was telling people just yesterday,
in Singapore, came though there
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on the way back from Thailand,
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that if ever your kids get an "F" at school,
did they ever work out what "F" means?
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I was a schoolteacher.
"F" means Fantastic. [laughter]
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If they get an "E" that means Excellent.
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But if they get an "A" that means Arrogant.
[laughter]
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All these people getting so proud of getting
As and straight As, they really are
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a pain in the butt, aren't they.
So full on themselves, "I got straight As..."
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So I prefer the Fs, the Fantastics.
The Excellents.
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Because it's not so much the pressure on succeeding in that
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competition to get good grades, or to get
a place in a good university,
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look at me, I got a place at one of the
best universities, and what happened
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to me, didn't do me any good going to
Cambridge, I might as well have
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gone to any old college, even no
college at all.
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Actually, if I hadn't gone to Cambridge,
I'd probably have become a monk even earlier.
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That would've been good,
but anyway, this is just what happens
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in life, but you learn something there.
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On that subject, I like rambling,
one of the important events in my life
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as a student which turned me more towards
being a monk rather than being an academic.
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At the time I didn't realise its
importance but when you look
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back and you find these are the crucial
experiences which direct you in life,
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and that was when, I was a Buddhist at
university, I had a few other Buddhists,
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but one of my best friends was a Christian,
a very strong pracitising Christian,
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he became a hippy later in life,
but anyway he was a really strong Christian.
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And he told me one day that together with
a couple of his friends in Bible Study class
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they'd started to volunteer once a week
to go to the local hospital for those who had
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mental disabilities and volunteer.
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And when he told me that I didn't want to go, but I felt
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if I didn't go I was letting down the team,
Buddhism. So the only reason I
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volunteered to go was just ego, just pride,
"if the Christians can do it,
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the Buddhists can do it as well!"
That's what it was.
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I'm being quite honest - I just went there
because he was going there, so I had to go there.
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But a strange thing happened!
Like many things in life,
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you go and do something for one reason,
you find other reasons start to become
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predominant and it really changes your life.
Because those Christians, they went for
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two or three weeks and then dropped out.
I went there for two years.
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Every afternoon when I was up in
Cambridge and I would re-arrange
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tutorials and everything so I could go there.
I loved it and I wondered why,
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why did I enjoy going there?
I was helping out in the occupational therapy unit
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for those people with Down's Syndrome.
It was incredible to see the emotional intelligence
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those kids had, not kids, young men, young women.
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Even though I never knew the words "emotional intelligence"
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this was in 1969-1971 or something, still, they were just so sensitive
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to a world I hadn't really been trained in.
And I always remember, on a couple of occasions,
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I was a young man, you'd split up with your girlfriend, you'd go there and they'd pick it up straight away!
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I wouldn't need to tell them, they'd come running out and give me a hug. "Why are you doing that?"
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"There is something wrong isn't there?"
"How the heck do you know that?"
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And they were just so sensitive to my feelings,
they got to know me and love me.
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And they had this incredible emotional sensitivity.
And when I was sitting next to Nobel laureates,
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which I did in a place like that, they were socially so insensitive, they hadn't got an emotional neuron
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in their brains. Well they did, I'm exaggerating there.
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But when it came to the professors of life,
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I preferred to spend the afternoon with people with Down's Syndrome. I learnt much more from them.
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And I grew much more from them. I had to empathise with people. When you're with professors, or lecturers
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or even your friends, they were all talking, ah...the word is... "gomayan" [?]
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it takes me a long while to say, it's the Pali word for bullshit.
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You know all in their head, no idea
of their feelings. The boys and the girls couldn't
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understand how to get on with each other, just all fantasies and dreams and ideas and
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philosophies. You go with these people with
Down's Syndrome, and they felt, they knew the emotions.
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They couldn't do well at school, they were terrible at things like maths, but when it came to being able
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to feel what you're feeling and actually be kind to you, they were geniuses. And it came to the point I'd
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rather spend the afternoon with those people than with professors. I didn't know why at the time but
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it would actually encourage me in another area of life, this great emotional intelligence.
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It's because we're not sensitive to that inner world
of emotions, we keep thinking too much,
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doing too much, it's one of the reasons why we're tired.
But anyway, these young kids I saw,
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that was their biggest problem in life.
And once they told me that, told everybody,
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they opened up huge areas of improving
our lives both physically and emotionally,
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and with relations as well.
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How many of you when you come home
from work are grumpy?
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Even angry? So many people keep asking me:
"My husband is in such a bad mood
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every time, he's always shouting at the kids,
he's a terrible pain in the neck to live with.
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Why? Can you get him some anger management counselling or something?"
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I basically say, well teach him how to sleep at night.
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Teach him how to have a good rest.
See if he can overcome that tiredness
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which is so deeply embedded in our
humanity today.
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I'm only saying this because this is how I
understand things, there is no research
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to back me up here, but I'm sure that if
people did that research they'd probably
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discover what I know, and that is that
it's tiredness that creates so many divorces,
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so many relationships would break up
because of tiredness.
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And sicknesses such as cancers,
heart disease, because of tiredness.
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And even other things, an obvious
sickness which is very prevalent today
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is depression - a very deep tiredness.
It's such an obvious thing that there's
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a big problem in this world.
Maybe you've had times of tiredness
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it's as if the world is too heavy to
bear any longer.
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You really have to push so hard just to get by,
the struggle takes so much energy,
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and at times you have no more energy to give,
you go into this hole of depression,
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just absolutely low energy, nothing to give
to anything, can't even get out of bed sometimes.
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Then you want to get out of bed,
don't want to eat or do anything.
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Simply because you've got absolutely no energy at all,
you are deeply tired.
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We now have chronic fatigue syndrome.
I don't remember that when I was a kid.
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Why is that? Of course obviously, that
is a problem, tiredness, and the reason is
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because we have so much to do
in this world.
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The reason I'm rushing off after this talk is
because there's a monk
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Bhante Gunaratana, a very famous monk,
a really nice monk, he's been here before,
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he's 88, and he was supposed to come and teach a meditation retreat at Jhana Grove this weekend.
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When we heard he was here we moved
Heaven and Earth to try to get him to come here
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to get the retreat free for that weekend
and advertise it, buy him the airline tickets.
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But then he got too sick.
So his doctor said no, you can't come.
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So where does the buck stop?
At the top - so I've got to teach
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the retreat in his place.
I should be relaxing this weekend,
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I've just been on a long trip to Thailand
teaching so many hours.
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And on Monday morning I'm off again
to Korea to teach there.
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This should be a rest for me.
So I am tired.
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But I could be exhaused but there
is another thing which I know,
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what happens when you've been
a meditator monk for so many years,
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how to deal with that tiredness,
so it doesn't cause you depression, irritation,
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anger, all these other emotional and physical
sicknesses.
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How do we deal with tiredness in this world?
We have to do much more than maybe our ancestors did.
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So how do we deal with that tiredness?
One - if you're tired you can't afford to worry about the future.
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You haven't got any spare energy to waste.
So sometimes when I'm very busy I refuse
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to look at my calendar. If I looked at my calendar,
"whoa" no one could ever do that.
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Some of the other monks look at it,
"how do you do that Ajahn Brahm?"
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"Because I don't look at it."
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You do live in the present moment,
because how much energy do you waste
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worrying that you will not be able to cope?
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I never do that because I know
just how that is going to be awful.
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I told one of the monks today, because I was just
really exhausted, I remember a time when I
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was a young monk in Thailand, wondering around from monastery to monastery, having a great sense of freedom
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but on this occasion I'd been travelling all day
from just after lunch, our lunch is about 9:00
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and that's it for the day, and then travelling all day
in hot weather, I was in a Thai bus, not like the
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Thai buses these days, Thai buses these days are
fantastic - people say what are you talking about.
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I've been there, it's not fantastic, this was 40 years ago,
and this really hot and cramped small seat for two,
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and there's usually three in there plus a chicken
or pig or something else, I don't know what else,
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cramped up for hours after hours after hours,
and finally got to this monastery where I was
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supposed to be going to, I rememer the time, 5:45
in the evening and checked-in, there was two monks there,
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"Welcome, you can stay here but you've got
15 minutes to take a quick bath because at 6:00
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we all have to meditate for 4 hours, no moving."
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"What?! I've been on the road all day, I'm tired,
I'm not going to be able to handle that!"
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But...the wisdom of my practice kicked in,
I think I've said this a couple of weeks ago,
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the story of moving the wheelbarrows of earth,
if you haven't heard that story it's in
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Opening the Door of Your Heart,
one of the first books which I wrote,
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It's a story of how as a young monk
I have to move earth from
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9 o'clock in the morning to 9 o'clock in the evening
for 3 days because my teacher wanted
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it to be moved. It's really hard work,
really heavy labour, but you don't mind.
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I was fit and healthy, I'm fit and healthy now.
It finished, and that night Ajahn Chah went
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to another monastery and the second monk,
he's the head monk now, said,
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"You put it in the wrong place, move it."
Another 3 days of hard work.
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I can handle that..but you get very dirty,
and just sweaty, and mosquitos,
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you got both hands on the wheelbarrow,
you can't keep the
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misquitos off you, you're sweating, and oh the
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mosquitos they really have a great lunch
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when you're working like that, so after
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6 days, finished at last.
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That night my master Ajahn Chah
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came back and the following morning said,
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"Why have you moved the earth over there?
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I thought I told you to move it in that other spot.
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MOVE IT!" Another 3 days of hard physical labour.
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In the mosquito-ridden sweaty jungles.
00:17:31.701 --> 00:17:33.989
Those people who worked for the Japanese in
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the Second World War, I know what they felt like.
00:17:37.149 --> 00:17:39.937
Honesty. Really hard work, actually, they were,
00:17:39.937 --> 00:17:42.284
we were malnourished as well.
00:17:42.284 --> 00:17:44.467
You should see photos of me in those days,
00:17:44.467 --> 00:17:47.270
nothing like now, you wouldn't recognise me, honestly
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from what I look like today.
00:17:49.143 --> 00:17:52.848
Being a bit fat today is just balancing what I did
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when I was young, it's fair. [laughs]
00:17:56.511 --> 00:17:59.428
Anyway, really hard work, and when it came to
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the next day, 6 days already passed and
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3 more days of hard work were in front of me,
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I started complaining. I was exhausted, tired, had enough.
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I complained, I always say, it was great in those
00:18:13.721 --> 00:18:17.177
days because there were hardly any other
Westerners there.
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Just working with the Thai monks and the
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Laotian monks, so you could swear in English.
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I thought no-one would understand you.
00:18:26.638 --> 00:18:30.473
But even though they never understood any English
00:18:30.473 --> 00:18:32.720
just they could pick up your body language,
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you were really suffering.
00:18:34.655 --> 00:18:36.438
And that was when one of the monks,
00:18:36.438 --> 00:18:39.312
I forget who it was, but whoever you are,
00:18:39.312 --> 00:18:41.895
thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you,
00:18:41.895 --> 00:18:44.739
for what you taught me because he said to me,
00:18:44.739 --> 00:18:48.348
"pushing the wheelbarrow is easy,
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thinking about it is the hard part."
00:18:52.794 --> 00:18:55.321
He got me, he nailed me.
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I was thinking about it, that was the hard part of
00:18:57.977 --> 00:19:01.427
pushing a wheelbarrow for another three days.
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Doing it is easy, and so, thank you, thank you, thank you,
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I stopped thinking about it and it became fun again.
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We had races with the other monks, who'd get there first.
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You know, your turn to go on the shovel,
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putting earth into the wheelbarrow,
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oh sorry, did I throw it a bit hard?
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Oh sorry. On purpose of cause.
00:19:24.392 --> 00:19:27.202
Just having fun and games, messing around.
00:19:27.202 --> 00:19:33.652
But anyway, I am pretty playful.
00:19:33.652 --> 00:19:37.907
I went to a conference in Vietnam a couple of years ago,
00:19:37.907 --> 00:19:42.022
and if you go to conferences, big organised conferences,
00:19:42.022 --> 00:19:45.261
the organisers want you to see some of the sights.
00:19:45.261 --> 00:19:48.266
I don't like being a tourist but you had no choice.
00:19:48.266 --> 00:19:52.602
So I was in the middle of Vietnam somewhere,
00:19:52.602 --> 00:19:56.615
to these lakes and underground tunnels and stuff,
00:19:56.615 --> 00:19:58.415
where you go through in a barge,
00:19:58.415 --> 00:20:02.885
fascinating beautiful place but on the way back...
00:20:02.885 --> 00:20:10.151
Actually, weird, I was representing Singapore,
00:20:10.151 --> 00:20:13.569
not Australia, so I was in the Singapore boat
00:20:13.569 --> 00:20:15.726
and there was another Singapore boat,
00:20:15.726 --> 00:20:17.903
we had the Theravada monks in our boat,
00:20:17.903 --> 00:20:20.740
and the Mahayana monks in the other boat,
00:20:20.740 --> 00:20:22.427
so I looked at them and said
00:20:22.427 --> 00:20:25.710
"Right, a race, who's better, the Mahayana or the
00:20:25.710 --> 00:20:28.501
Theravada? [laughter]. Those are the two parts
00:20:28.501 --> 00:20:30.139
of Buddhist so we had a race between
00:20:30.139 --> 00:20:32.678
Mahayana and Theravada. I was in the Theravada
00:20:32.678 --> 00:20:35.657
boat paddling for all I could and the Mahayana
00:20:35.657 --> 00:20:38.265
monks were paddling really hard as well just to
00:20:38.265 --> 00:20:40.207
see who would win, and of course it's obvious,
00:20:40.207 --> 00:20:43.532
the Theravada would win, it's obvious,
00:20:43.532 --> 00:20:45.316
if you know anything about Buddhism,
00:20:45.316 --> 00:20:47.823
because the Mahayana, they are Boddhisatvas,
00:20:47.823 --> 00:20:49.627
they even let other people get to Enlightenment
00:20:49.627 --> 00:20:51.907
before they do, so they made us get to the
00:20:51.907 --> 00:20:56.196
finishing line before they did, that's their tradition [laughter].
00:20:56.196 --> 00:20:59.978
Just playing around. Monks have a lot of fun.
00:20:59.978 --> 00:21:03.858
We do really stupid things sometimes but it's good fun.
00:21:03.858 --> 00:21:08.031
Religion can be far too serious and I just really
00:21:08.031 --> 00:21:10.387
rebel against serious religion.
00:21:10.387 --> 00:21:13.443
But anyway, this was where I learnt
00:21:13.443 --> 00:21:17.866
how to have fun, because I was exhausted
00:21:17.866 --> 00:21:19.710
moving those wheelbarrows but
00:21:19.710 --> 00:21:23.527
instead of thinking about it I just did it.
00:21:23.527 --> 00:21:26.171
And all the tiredness vanished.
00:21:26.171 --> 00:21:28.113
It's like this evening,
00:21:28.113 --> 00:21:31.039
all the tiredness vanishes when you
stop thinking about it.
00:21:31.039 --> 00:21:33.416
Thinking about the future, worrying about it,
00:21:33.416 --> 00:21:38.709
because most of your energy gets wasted in thinking.
00:21:38.709 --> 00:21:41.492
If you are tired, if you've had a really busy day,
00:21:41.492 --> 00:21:45.854
for goodness sake, you can't afford to think!
00:21:45.854 --> 00:21:49.325
And complain...and worry... and get afraid..
00:21:49.325 --> 00:21:51.286
and plan this..and plan that...
00:21:51.286 --> 00:21:55.015
Your brain is exhausted, give it a break!
00:21:55.015 --> 00:21:57.516
But what do people do when they're tired,
00:21:57.516 --> 00:22:00.852
they get grumpy, they don't know how just to be.
00:22:00.852 --> 00:22:03.150
They always tend to think too much
00:22:03.150 --> 00:22:08.129
and that is the most important reason why people are tired.
00:22:08.129 --> 00:22:12.645
Thinking way too much rather than just doing it.
00:22:12.645 --> 00:22:15.425
I don't know what you're going to do this weekend
00:22:15.425 --> 00:22:18.254
so don't just think about it, just do it.
00:22:18.254 --> 00:22:19.801
Tell that to your husband who has to clean out
00:22:19.801 --> 00:22:21.637
the garaga - "I'm busy"
00:22:21.637 --> 00:22:26.824
Say, "don't think about it husband, just do it" [laughter]
00:22:26.824 --> 00:22:29.664
You've got to go and have a biopsy.
00:22:29.664 --> 00:22:32.792
Don't just think about it because you get
00:22:32.792 --> 00:22:36.861
really exhausted thinking "oh.....is it cancer? I'm going to die.."
00:22:36.861 --> 00:22:38.690
Don't just think about it, just do it.
00:22:38.690 --> 00:22:43.483
Even dying itself, dying is okay, just don't think about it,
00:22:43.483 --> 00:22:48.944
just do it. [laughter]
00:22:48.944 --> 00:22:51.600
The thinking about it is the problem
00:22:51.600 --> 00:22:56.183
but don't actually do it on purpose, just when it happens.
00:22:56.183 --> 00:23:00.284
That's one of the reasons why I learnt that much
00:23:00.284 --> 00:23:04.371
of tiredness is the physically exhaustion which
00:23:04.371 --> 00:23:06.776
you can't do too much about, actually you can do
00:23:06.776 --> 00:23:09.321
something about it, but the major part of tiredness
00:23:09.321 --> 00:23:12.458
is the mental, emotional, tiredness.
00:23:12.458 --> 00:23:17.774
Emotional tiredness is because you're trying way too hard.
00:23:17.774 --> 00:23:19.250
I don't know why you're trying.
00:23:19.250 --> 00:23:23.683
Sometimes people try because, "oh I have to."
No you don't.
00:23:23.683 --> 00:23:27.108
"But, but, my boss expects me to do some work."
00:23:27.108 --> 00:23:29.102
As long as he thinks you're doing some work
00:23:29.102 --> 00:23:32.468
that's good enough for the boss [laughter].
00:23:32.468 --> 00:23:35.542
How many of you read, I love reading cartoons,
00:23:35.542 --> 00:23:39.838
the Dilbert cartoon. I remember that Wally,
00:23:39.838 --> 00:23:44.016
in the Dilbert cartoons Wally is this guy in the office,
00:23:44.016 --> 00:23:47.034
you only ever see him carrying a cup of coffee from the left to
00:23:47.034 --> 00:23:49.920
the right, the right to the left, he never does any work,
00:23:49.920 --> 00:23:52.388
he just carries the coffee backwards and forwards,
00:23:52.388 --> 00:23:54.622
and it appears like he's doing some work,
00:23:54.622 --> 00:23:56.834
that's why he keeps his job.
00:23:56.834 --> 00:24:01.811
Maybe that's why I keep my job, appearance. [laugher]
00:24:01.811 --> 00:24:04.777
No anyway, so there's another lovely cartoon
00:24:04.777 --> 00:24:08.055
which I saw the other day, rambling again,
00:24:08.055 --> 00:24:11.309
somebody sent it to me and it's a wonderful one
00:24:11.309 --> 00:24:15.743
to talk about - why people worry about death.
00:24:15.743 --> 00:24:17.657
Just don't worry, it hasn't happened yet,
00:24:17.657 --> 00:24:21.141
don't think about it, don't worry about the future.
00:24:21.141 --> 00:24:25.184
And this cartoon was of Peanuts, you know
00:24:25.184 --> 00:24:29.203
Snoopy and Charlie Brown, those wonderful characters.
00:24:29.203 --> 00:24:32.375
And honestly, read those comics, because you get far more
00:24:32.375 --> 00:24:34.709
sense out of those comics than you ever do
00:24:34.709 --> 00:24:39.110
out of editorials or other news articles.
00:24:39.110 --> 00:24:42.178
They're far more insightful.
00:24:42.178 --> 00:24:46.605
And this Peanuts, this Charlie Brown and his dog Snoopy,
00:24:46.605 --> 00:24:48.679
must have been on vacation somewhere,
00:24:48.679 --> 00:24:52.281
they were on a pier and they were sitting there
00:24:52.281 --> 00:24:55.598
enjoying the afternoon, this beautiful view,
00:24:55.598 --> 00:24:59.109
just mountains and lakes and waters,
00:24:59.109 --> 00:25:01.424
having a beautiful afternoon there,
00:25:01.424 --> 00:25:04.955
and Charlie Brown says to his dog Snoopy,
00:25:04.955 --> 00:25:13.300
"You know Snoopy, all of us one day will die."
00:25:13.300 --> 00:25:15.878
And Snoopy, this great philosopher,
00:25:15.878 --> 00:25:20.436
he really is wise dog, much wiser than human beings,
00:25:20.436 --> 00:25:24.786
Snoopy says, "True, one day all of us will die,
00:25:24.786 --> 00:25:31.930
but most days all of us won't die." [laughter]
00:25:31.930 --> 00:25:35.000
What a wise thing to say.
Yeah, one day you'll die but most days
00:25:35.000 --> 00:25:38.336
all of us won't. [laughter]
00:25:38.336 --> 00:25:41.404
So why are you getting so negative?
00:25:41.404 --> 00:25:45.049
So don't think about it, because thinking about
00:25:45.049 --> 00:25:49.215
those things, that more than anything else, is what tires us.
00:25:49.215 --> 00:25:54.453
So you get your kids trying to get good
scores in TER, don't think about it!
00:25:54.453 --> 00:25:58.153
Doesn't matter that much,
if you can do well in that fine...
00:25:58.153 --> 00:26:01.538
If it's natural, if you're naturally gifted then
00:26:01.538 --> 00:26:04.768
fine but don't push yourself too hard for goodness sake.
00:26:04.768 --> 00:26:08.436
Some parents get really upset at me for that but I want those kids to have
00:26:08.436 --> 00:26:11.439
emotional intelligence, to feel loved and
00:26:11.439 --> 00:26:16.681
respected even if they don't do well in those examinations.
00:26:16.681 --> 00:26:21.542
As I keep saying, half of your children,
all the people here today, half of
00:26:21.542 --> 00:26:26.933
your children will be below average intelligence.
00:26:26.933 --> 00:26:29.605
Come on, it's logical, it has to be that way,
00:26:29.605 --> 00:26:32.489
half of your children will be below
00:26:32.489 --> 00:26:38.690
average intelligence, it has to be, that's what average means!
00:26:38.690 --> 00:26:42.786
If you're all Einsteins, half of the Einsteins
00:26:42.786 --> 00:26:47.099
have to be below average. [laughter]
00:26:47.099 --> 00:26:53.129
But what do you think - "oh not not my kids,
their kids, okay, but not mine!"
00:26:53.129 --> 00:26:56.857
So look, give your kids a break,
00:26:56.857 --> 00:27:01.881
let them be, because if you take the pressure
00:27:01.881 --> 00:27:05.272
off your kids at at early age,
00:27:05.272 --> 00:27:09.094
they won't get so tired and they will develop
00:27:09.094 --> 00:27:12.298
the emotional intelligence which I saw
00:27:12.298 --> 00:27:15.692
in those Down's Syndrome people.
00:27:15.692 --> 00:27:19.578
Beautiful people. They couldn't do sums,
00:27:19.578 --> 00:27:25.280
they couldn't be electricians, they could be a monk.
00:27:25.280 --> 00:27:28.345
They felt, they were sensitive, and they had
00:27:28.345 --> 00:27:31.351
these beautiful relationships with each other.
00:27:31.351 --> 00:27:33.630
Brothers and sisters, institutionalised,
00:27:33.630 --> 00:27:37.622
but really really kind. I saw that.
00:27:37.622 --> 00:27:40.183
Now what type of person do you want to be?
00:27:40.183 --> 00:27:44.128
Your kids to be? They weren't tired, they had fun.
00:27:44.128 --> 00:27:49.249
And when we accept ourselves for what we are,
00:27:49.249 --> 00:27:52.301
instead of..going back to your kids,
00:27:52.301 --> 00:27:55.296
don't push them, let them just develop,
00:27:55.296 --> 00:27:59.404
nurture them, encourage them, inspire them,
00:27:59.404 --> 00:28:01.846
but who knows what they will be in this life?
00:28:01.846 --> 00:28:04.024
They're not all going to go to University
00:28:04.024 --> 00:28:05.952
and it's terrible that everyone has to go to
00:28:05.952 --> 00:28:08.055
University - there's so much more to the world
00:28:08.055 --> 00:28:11.634
and life! So many people in this world,
00:28:11.634 --> 00:28:15.381
University kills them.
00:28:15.381 --> 00:28:19.232
There was a graffiti which I remember outside
00:28:19.232 --> 00:28:21.413
the philosophy department,
00:28:21.413 --> 00:28:27.218
no, this was actually outside the physics lab in Cambridge.
00:28:27.218 --> 00:28:30.093
Graffiti in those days, you'd actually go looking
00:28:30.093 --> 00:28:33.541
for it because it was really profound.
00:28:33.541 --> 00:28:39.105
And that was - "exams - kill by degrees".
00:28:39.105 --> 00:28:42.587
It's a wondeful pun - they kill by degrees.
00:28:42.587 --> 00:28:47.121
They kill learning, they kill the excitement
00:28:47.121 --> 00:28:49.816
of investigating knowledge, we have to be
00:28:49.816 --> 00:28:53.470
tested and graded - who gets the best.
00:28:53.470 --> 00:28:57.578
It actually kills emotional intelligence,
00:28:57.578 --> 00:29:00.733
academic insitutitions, mostly, maybe they've
00:29:00.733 --> 00:29:03.206
changed somewhere, most of them them they
00:29:03.206 --> 00:29:09.885
kill that ability to explore and also to cooperate
00:29:09.885 --> 00:29:12.893
with each other, because scores are all personal,
00:29:12.893 --> 00:29:16.149
you have to compete against your best friends.
00:29:16.149 --> 00:29:20.325
And of course that causes a lot of tiredness.
00:29:20.325 --> 00:29:24.263
A lot of "you have to live up to something
you can't be."
00:29:24.263 --> 00:29:31.146
That is a stress of life. Me, I don't have any stress
giving public talks.
00:29:31.146 --> 00:29:35.192
Years and years and years ago I
worked it out, so simple!
00:29:35.192 --> 00:29:39.835
That if I give a public talk and you guys like it,
wonderful! I get so much joy
00:29:39.835 --> 00:29:44.791
seeing you happy and see I can actually
help you and change your lives.
00:29:44.791 --> 00:29:49.284
I'm really happy if my talks are really well received.
00:29:49.284 --> 00:29:52.987
But I'm even more happy if you don't like them!
00:29:52.987 --> 00:29:57.013
Because then you can live me alone
and I can spend more time in my cave
00:29:57.013 --> 00:30:00.195
and just enjoy my time, retire,
because you don't like my talks,
00:30:00.195 --> 00:30:03.732
you've heard all the old jokes before,
all the stories before,
00:30:03.732 --> 00:30:07.848
so none of you actually come here,
brilliant!
00:30:07.848 --> 00:30:13.108
That actually is my trick, is my stratgy.
It did not work!
00:30:13.108 --> 00:30:18.251
I decided to write all my stories in books,
so you don't have to come back anymore.
00:30:18.251 --> 00:30:22.684
I have to keep telling them until you get
so bored that you won't come back.
00:30:22.684 --> 00:30:25.212
But it doesn't work...
You keep coming back for more.
00:30:25.212 --> 00:30:29.108
You must be all masochists [chuckles].
00:30:29.108 --> 00:30:34.942
But no.. the point was, I don't care!
Either way life is good!
00:30:34.942 --> 00:30:37.777
You succeed, you don't succeed.
00:30:37.777 --> 00:30:45.341
But the trouble is the pressure is on you
in this world - you only have one idea of success.
00:30:45.341 --> 00:30:49.854
Or limited ideas of what being a
successful person is.
00:30:49.854 --> 00:30:56.357
I want to try and make more ideas
of success, broaden it.
00:30:56.357 --> 00:31:03.185
Even if you're living out in the streets,
you're living out in the street happily.
00:31:03.185 --> 00:31:05.368
Is that success?
00:31:05.368 --> 00:31:08.539
Sometimes people think,
"oh that poor person"
00:31:08.539 --> 00:31:13.494
You ask the person and they say,
"No, I'm free, I don't have to worry about.."
00:31:13.494 --> 00:31:16.875
It's a bit cold maybe..
Have you lived out in the street?
00:31:16.875 --> 00:31:20.548
I remember just in the hippie years,
camping out under bridges.
00:31:20.548 --> 00:31:25.464
I remember as a monk, one of the
most wondeful times I had as a monk
00:31:25.464 --> 00:31:29.569
was when we had to leave the monastery in
in Thailand after 5 years,
00:31:29.569 --> 00:31:34.049
you had your basic training,
out, out, out, go!
00:31:34.049 --> 00:31:40.960
And we had to just walk and
eveything I owned I carried with me.
00:31:40.960 --> 00:31:45.682
It wasn't that much, you could walk,
it was light. All my possessions
00:31:45.682 --> 00:31:51.144
were on my back and it never ached.
And it was a beautiful feeling of freedom,
00:31:51.144 --> 00:31:56.023
like being a bird,
and you could be a bird as a human being,
00:31:56.023 --> 00:32:02.125
and every crossroad I came to you could go
any directions you wanted,
00:32:02.125 --> 00:32:07.365
you had no pressure on you
to get anywhere, to achieve anything,
00:32:07.365 --> 00:32:15.291
you had no deadlines, no appointments,
you just "that's a nice direction, I'll go there."
00:32:15.291 --> 00:32:20.720
You had this wonderful ability to sleep anywhere,
in a rice field, in a paddock.
00:32:20.720 --> 00:32:28.019
The best place, my teacher said to sleep
as a monk at that time was in the
00:32:28.019 --> 00:32:32.990
cremation grounds. The reason
was that Thai people were so scared
00:32:32.990 --> 00:32:39.050
of ghosts you'd be guaranteed
a peaceful evening if you went there.
00:32:39.050 --> 00:32:41.759
But if you go anywhere else
they'd always come asking you
00:32:41.759 --> 00:32:45.532
questions or whatever, so the
cremation grounds were the favourite
00:32:45.532 --> 00:32:48.645
places to go sleep at night.
00:32:48.645 --> 00:32:57.438
Everyone else was sleeping there
as well - all the corpses [chuckles]
00:32:57.438 --> 00:32:59.598
It's a very nice place to have a sleep.
00:32:59.598 --> 00:33:05.279
But anyway, there was a beautiful feeling,
you had no pressure on you.
00:33:05.279 --> 00:33:08.110
So much freedom wherever you wanted to go.
00:33:08.110 --> 00:33:13.898
And in the morning you'd go to any
village and get enough to eat on the alms round.
00:33:13.898 --> 00:33:20.347
You didn't need any money,
just your alms bowl.
00:33:20.347 --> 00:33:28.008
The beautiful feeling of freedom,
and even though you walked a long distance
00:33:28.008 --> 00:33:34.720
and it was hot, you never felt tired
emotionally because you hardly
00:33:34.720 --> 00:33:39.413
thought because there was nothing
to think about.
00:33:39.413 --> 00:33:42.988
What do you think about?
Your worries.
00:33:42.988 --> 00:33:45.733
Where you have to be,
how you're going to get there.
00:33:45.733 --> 00:33:52.366
We waste so much time and energy
worrying about the future which is
00:33:52.366 --> 00:33:58.609
why if you are to overcome tiredness
and it's a big problem for you,
00:33:58.609 --> 00:34:04.020
one of the things is please learn
how to keep your mind efficient.
00:34:04.020 --> 00:34:08.804
Doing life is easy, thinking about it
is the hard part.
00:34:08.804 --> 00:34:15.608
Living with a partner is easy,
if you think about it, it drives you crazy.
00:34:15.608 --> 00:34:19.236
Honestly, just in Thailand they were saying,
00:34:19.236 --> 00:34:24.314
"Oh, my husband keeps yapping at me,
he's really nasty to me."
00:34:24.314 --> 00:34:29.832
I say again, if your husband comes home
and he's always nasty to you,
00:34:29.832 --> 00:34:37.204
says all these bad things remember
why you were born with two ears,
00:34:37.204 --> 00:34:43.390
one to go in, one to go out,
don't keep anything!
00:34:43.390 --> 00:34:46.892
Because when you keep it,
that's called thinking about it,
00:34:46.892 --> 00:34:50.082
you let it go immediately.
00:34:50.082 --> 00:34:59.855
The ability to let go of stuff which is not
necessary, that's the secret of overcoming tiredness.
00:34:59.855 --> 00:35:02.955
Let go of thinking, just do it.
00:35:02.955 --> 00:35:09.920
Let go of the future, you're exhausted
worrying about what's going to happen next.
00:35:09.920 --> 00:35:16.831
And let go of the past - I don't know if
I told this a couple of weeks ago but
00:35:16.831 --> 00:35:24.387
a very wonderful compliment which
I got, 2-3 weeks ago I did my annual
00:35:24.387 --> 00:35:30.969
visit to the Cancer Wellness Association,
they started off in this old house in Cottesloe,
00:35:30.969 --> 00:35:36.174
and the government, good on the Western Australian
government, they actually put a
00:35:36.174 --> 00:35:42.036
lot of money into building a huge campus,
everything to do with cancer,
00:35:42.036 --> 00:35:47.264
so there you will find the Melanoma Society,
the Prostate Cancer Society,
00:35:47.264 --> 00:35:51.471
the Breast Cancer Society,
and the general wellness association,
00:35:51.471 --> 00:35:58.195
just all in one area, which is brilliant.
And I go there every year.
00:35:58.195 --> 00:36:03.231
And when I went there, I was reminded,
my 26th year going there,
00:36:03.231 --> 00:36:08.494
it's a long time, 26 years, and they said
the reason we always invite you back,
00:36:08.494 --> 00:36:11.400
usually the first talk of the season,
the first talk of the year,
00:36:11.400 --> 00:36:17.945
to get it started in a good way,
they said 26 years ago there was a girl there,
00:36:17.945 --> 00:36:24.922
a woman, she had cancer, she got into
remission but she always worried
00:36:24.922 --> 00:36:32.582
what would happen if it came back,
and no counselor could help her,
00:36:32.582 --> 00:36:36.992
and then this monk comes along,
and tells the story of the other
00:36:36.992 --> 00:36:42.161
great philosopher, I told already
about Snoopy, the American philospher,
00:36:42.161 --> 00:36:46.480
the greatest philosopher of the last century.
But there was even an earlier English philosopher
00:36:46.480 --> 00:36:54.271
I really really respect, if you like philosophy
check out one of the best philosophers
00:36:54.271 --> 00:37:00.310
who's ever been written about called
Winnie the Pooh [laughter]
00:37:00.310 --> 00:37:04.337
Now the other philosophers who teach in
universities there's just full of too many words,
00:37:04.337 --> 00:37:08.061
they never get to the heart of it!
And there's Winnie the Pooh,
00:37:08.061 --> 00:37:12.684
one of my favourite stories, it would've
been in Opening the Door of Your Heart,
00:37:12.684 --> 00:37:19.412
I actually wrote to Disney who has the
copyright for Winnie the Pooh now
00:37:19.412 --> 00:37:22.936
and they said "absolutely no!"
Because Disney is so commercial
00:37:22.936 --> 00:37:26.880
they won't allow anybody, even though
it's a tiny tiny little bit from that book
00:37:26.880 --> 00:37:33.980
Winnie the Pooh, but anyway
the story was which I told 26 years ago
00:37:33.980 --> 00:37:37.965
at the Cancer Wellness Association,
the story was about Winnie the Pooh and
00:37:37.965 --> 00:37:43.636
little Piglet walking through the forest
when there was a storm and twigs were
00:37:43.636 --> 00:37:48.450
coming down, branches were coming down,
and then trees started getting uprooted.
00:37:48.450 --> 00:37:54.966
Storms are dangerous. You shouldn't be
out in a storm in a forest and so Piglet
00:37:54.966 --> 00:38:01.473
was really afraid and his fear got so huge
he turned to Winnie the Pooh and said
00:38:01.473 --> 00:38:05.867
"I can't go any longer!
I can't walk any longer! I'm so afraid."
00:38:05.867 --> 00:38:07.859
"Why?" said Winnie the Pooh.
00:38:07.859 --> 00:38:15.118
"I'm so afraid that a tree might fall
when we are underneath it!"
00:38:15.118 --> 00:38:22.224
Which was a possibility...
And Winnie the Pooh shot back,
00:38:22.224 --> 00:38:26.649
which showed what a great philosopher
he was, if he didn't have so much hair he
00:38:26.649 --> 00:38:31.642
could've been a Buddhist monk [laughter]
00:38:31.642 --> 00:38:42.652
He shot back with, "what would happen if
a tree fell when we were not underneath it?"
00:38:42.652 --> 00:38:47.151
And that was the end of the fear.
Because all fear is looking into the future
00:38:47.151 --> 00:38:51.798
with a negative mind, thinking of all
the things which will go wrong
00:38:51.798 --> 00:38:57.630
with a fault-finding mind, that's called fear.
The opposite is hope, looking at the
00:38:57.630 --> 00:39:01.719
future with a positive mind,
what might go right,
00:39:01.719 --> 00:39:08.315
and you would have noticed in your life,
if you fear something, it's more likely
00:39:08.315 --> 00:39:16.505
to happen, with hope, what you hope for
is more likely to happen.
00:39:16.505 --> 00:39:24.207
So when I told that story to this girl
26 years ago, I answered her question.
00:39:24.207 --> 00:39:26.667
What would happen if the cancer came back?
00:39:26.667 --> 00:39:30.920
The answer was - what would happen if it
didn't come back?
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:35.950
It never came back, and that's why
they keep inviting me there.
00:39:35.950 --> 00:39:40.555
I come back but the cancer doesn't
[laughter]
00:39:40.555 --> 00:39:43.577
Now you can understand,
analyse that a little deeper,
00:39:43.577 --> 00:39:48.351
it's obvious, when you look at it a bit
deeper, if you're worried about a cancer,
00:39:48.351 --> 00:39:50.663
"what would happen if it came back??
will it come back?"
00:39:50.663 --> 00:39:54.530
you're getting tense, you're getting worried,
the sort of things, the sort of stress which
00:39:54.530 --> 00:40:01.418
causes cancer, you are just putting into place.
But if you think, what happens if it doesn't,
00:40:01.418 --> 00:40:05.557
you don't worry about it, which means you're
more relaxed, more healthy, and
00:40:05.557 --> 00:40:08.380
the chances are the cancer is not
going to come back.
00:40:08.380 --> 00:40:16.923
You increase the chances of success,
good health, happiness,
00:40:16.923 --> 00:40:25.515
and also you don't get so tired,
worrying about what will happen.
00:40:25.515 --> 00:40:33.189
Deeper, this is meditation teachings
but it's brilliant teachings -
00:40:33.189 --> 00:40:38.659
"two parts to the human mind",
this is why people get tired.
00:40:38.705 --> 00:40:43.106
I call it the doing and the knowing.
If you've been to any of my meditation
00:40:43.106 --> 00:40:49.553
teachings you will know this, it's a very
powerful way of looking at the human mind.
00:40:49.553 --> 00:40:52.894
The doing mind is what reacts,
it's reacting to what I'm saying,
00:40:52.894 --> 00:40:55.965
thinking about it, saying,
"oh that's good" or "that's rubbish",
00:40:55.965 --> 00:41:00.801
that reaction is called doing.
Planning, remembering,
00:41:00.801 --> 00:41:05.230
figuring out things, initiating action,
deciding to walk,
00:41:05.230 --> 00:41:09.562
figuring out what you're going to do when
you leave here, what you're going to do
00:41:09.562 --> 00:41:14.937
on the weekend, all that is part of the doing mind.
00:41:14.937 --> 00:41:18.790
The other part of the mind is just
what knows.
00:41:18.790 --> 00:41:22.690
The passive consciousness,
just being aware,
00:41:22.690 --> 00:41:28.844
feeling the itch on your arm,
feeling the coolness of this room,
00:41:28.844 --> 00:41:35.338
hearing the sound of the traffic
in the distance.
00:41:35.338 --> 00:41:39.545
Just knowing.
Now, once you know the difference
00:41:39.545 --> 00:41:45.459
between those two parts of the human
mind it won't take you long to notice
00:41:45.459 --> 00:41:50.332
that most of your mental energy,
over 90% of it,
00:41:50.332 --> 00:41:57.070
goes into doing stuff, reacting.
Which means you've hardly got anything
00:41:57.070 --> 00:42:02.489
left just to know, to be aware, to feel.
Which is why so many people,
00:42:02.489 --> 00:42:07.831
they can't even see the stars at night,
even when they're up,
00:42:07.831 --> 00:42:13.260
they're just doing too much.
They can't feel the wind,
00:42:13.260 --> 00:42:18.030
they don't know when it rains,
they're too busy doing something else,
00:42:18.030 --> 00:42:24.044
they're not alive, and they're also
very very tired,
00:42:24.044 --> 00:42:32.991
doing far too much,
being far too little.
00:42:32.991 --> 00:42:42.587
What happens, if instead of actually
thinking you just "are", just feeling,
00:42:42.587 --> 00:42:46.265
feeling the wind, feeling the cold,
feeling the heat, walking back to the
00:42:46.265 --> 00:42:54.786
car with your shoes off, feeling the stone
or the grass under your feet.
00:42:54.786 --> 00:42:58.650
You feel alive,
but not just feeling alive,
00:42:58.650 --> 00:43:04.402
you are feeding energy into knowing,
taking it away from doing so much.
00:43:04.402 --> 00:43:07.181
When you put energy back into
passive awareness -
00:43:07.181 --> 00:43:16.556
knowing, mindfulness - tiredness starts to go.
You wake up because the
00:43:16.556 --> 00:43:22.030
mental tiredness is the knower with
very low energy.
00:43:22.030 --> 00:43:26.299
Put energy into the awareness and
you'll feel awake.
00:43:26.299 --> 00:43:31.494
A good example of that is having a
cup of coffee.
00:43:31.494 --> 00:43:34.197
Before you have a cup of coffee
you're miserable.
00:43:34.197 --> 00:43:37.332
Have a cup of coffee, you can feel more,
you're awake, you're alive,
00:43:37.332 --> 00:43:41.741
you can see things, you can hear things,
you can think.
00:43:41.741 --> 00:43:48.594
That's unnatural energy, it's still energy,
but imagine that energy was natural.
00:43:48.594 --> 00:43:52.973
So you wake up alive.
When the mind is energised,
00:43:52.973 --> 00:43:58.690
it energises the body, that's why
what I was doing 10 minutes after
00:43:58.690 --> 00:44:03.356
I was teaching you in the meditation
session, that's why usually I give guided
00:44:03.356 --> 00:44:09.040
meditation almost all the way through,
but I was so exhausted, so tired,
00:44:09.040 --> 00:44:12.481
if you want to know why I'll tell you
what I've been doing the last two weeks
00:44:12.481 --> 00:44:17.869
and today, if you want to know why it was there,
the reason, I should be exhausted,
00:44:17.869 --> 00:44:24.718
I taught you for 20 minutes, and then right,
no more doing anything,
00:44:24.718 --> 00:44:32.665
kept my mind really still,
getting energy pouring back into awareness,
00:44:32.665 --> 00:44:41.459
you wake up alive.
Wow, that's incredible,
00:44:41.459 --> 00:44:47.929
feeling the wind.. Can you hear that?
Feel it? Wow..
00:44:47.929 --> 00:44:52.726
Most people wouldn't be able to
hear that, but you did.
00:44:52.726 --> 00:45:01.075
Energy starts to come back,
tiredness vanishes.
00:45:01.075 --> 00:45:09.318
Heard a story at a global conference,
a psychologist, he's a good psychologist,
00:45:09.318 --> 00:45:15.071
but a bit crazy, why you have to pay people
to tell you this is absolutely ridiculous.
00:45:15.071 --> 00:45:20.409
His therapy, his method of therapy,
which is very very popular,
00:45:20.409 --> 00:45:29.718
you go to his place and pay a lot of money
and he tells you to go have a walk in nature.
00:45:29.718 --> 00:45:34.632
And it works! People's problems disappear,
he makes a lot of money,
00:45:34.632 --> 00:45:39.474
their problems disappear, that's it.
Smart guy.
00:45:39.474 --> 00:45:44.167
But why is it - walking in nature,
or being by the ocean by yourself,
00:45:44.167 --> 00:45:49.418
not swimming or surfing, just sitting there.
When you go to a forest and just do nothing,
00:45:49.418 --> 00:45:55.554
why is that therapeutic?
Simply because energy is going back
00:45:55.554 --> 00:46:01.057
into mindfulness, into knowing,
you're not doing so much,
00:46:01.057 --> 00:46:06.746
which means that your tiredness is going,
it's vanishing, and when that
00:46:06.746 --> 00:46:12.963
tiredness vanishes, your health,
mental, emotional, physical,
00:46:12.963 --> 00:46:20.339
increases enormously.
You're healing just because in nature you
00:46:20.339 --> 00:46:24.215
can't do very much.
Check it out this weekend.
00:46:24.215 --> 00:46:32.505
You've got a choice - go shopping
or go into the forest.
00:46:32.505 --> 00:46:41.496
And check what you feel like afterwards.
One is so much doing you come back tired.
00:46:41.496 --> 00:46:45.709
You go to a forest, or by a beach,
a quiet place by yourself,
00:46:45.709 --> 00:46:49.305
go into King's Park or whatever,
walk around the river quietly,
00:46:49.305 --> 00:46:55.883
not really doing much, and you find your
tiredness vanishes. Please for goodness sake,
00:46:55.883 --> 00:47:01.064
give yourself a break.
Too many people getting cancers,
00:47:01.064 --> 00:47:08.457
too many partners breaking up.
Too many kids just not being able to
00:47:08.457 --> 00:47:12.632
connect with their parents, because their
parents can't connect with them,
00:47:12.632 --> 00:47:19.117
because they're too tired.
Not being able to listen because they're
00:47:19.117 --> 00:47:25.818
too dull. For goodness sake understand
tiredness is one of the biggest scourges
00:47:25.818 --> 00:47:33.280
of our modern age, and there's many many
ways, especially what you're heard tonight,
00:47:33.280 --> 00:47:41.640
can overcome that tiredness and I've proved
it just by giving a talk, for 50 minutes,
00:47:41.640 --> 00:47:48.115
even though by all reasonable people
it should have been impossible.
00:47:48.115 --> 00:48:02.643
Thank you for listening.
Sadhu!! Sadhu!! Sadhu!!
00:48:02.643 --> 00:48:08.242
Okay, that's energy!
00:48:08.242 --> 00:48:13.358
Very good. What have we got here?
From Ireland, France and London!
00:48:13.358 --> 00:48:17.526
Wow, Europe.
How do we deal with the tiredness with
00:48:17.526 --> 00:48:21.519
people telling us we're wrong,
or that stuff we believe in is wrong?
00:48:21.519 --> 00:48:29.685
Just tell them - yeah you're right,
I am wrong. When I went to Malaysia
00:48:29.685 --> 00:48:39.591
a lot, this is one of the problems.
In Malaysia there are also many Christians,
00:48:39.591 --> 00:48:44.243
and these are the evangelical ones,
the ones that want to convert everybody..
00:48:44.243 --> 00:48:48.706
And so there was a problem in Malaysia,
also in Singapore,
00:48:48.706 --> 00:48:54.901
there's an old Buddhist man, been Buddhist all his life,
but his grandkid or his son had become
00:48:54.901 --> 00:48:58.705
an evangelical. Everyone else was Buddhist.
Or even Hindu, or whatever.
00:48:58.705 --> 00:49:04.612
And the son would think, "My father will go
to hell if he doesn't convert.."
00:49:04.612 --> 00:49:11.314
So he'd go with his friends, and his pastor,
by the bedside of this really sick and dying
00:49:11.314 --> 00:49:19.032
person, and keep harassing them until they
converted, and it was such a painful experience
00:49:19.032 --> 00:49:23.883
that even I think the Singapore government
made rules against that.
00:49:23.883 --> 00:49:29.709
But someone asked me - what was your advice? If that's my son, my grandson,
00:49:29.709 --> 00:49:35.171
I'm dying, he comes with his pastor,
his friends and they start talking about
00:49:35.171 --> 00:49:39.596
the Bible, Hallelujah, and I'm going to go
to hell if I don't convert,
00:49:39.596 --> 00:49:43.627
and Jesus is the only way,
what do I do?
00:49:43.627 --> 00:49:50.642
Don't try to convince them they're wrong.
You can't. Convert!
00:49:50.642 --> 00:49:54.265
Tell them, "oh yeah that makes a lot
of sense, grandson, okay I will take
00:49:54.265 --> 00:49:57.661
Jesus as my saviour."
And they go Hallelujah, Hallelujah,
00:49:57.661 --> 00:50:00.712
and then they leave you alone.
And as soon as they've walked out
00:50:00.712 --> 00:50:05.906
of the door, you can convert back again.
[laughter] Become a Buddhist.
00:50:05.906 --> 00:50:10.387
That's my practical advice.
So if someone says, "you're wrong,
00:50:10.387 --> 00:50:12.730
you're wrong, you're wrong."
"Yeah, you're right, I agree with you,"
00:50:12.730 --> 00:50:17.869
"I'm wrong, okay". Then they leave you alone.
And as soon as they leave you alone,
00:50:17.869 --> 00:50:22.893
"no that's rubbish, I was right all along"
[laughter]
00:50:22.893 --> 00:50:32.406
Otherwise it's impossible. I say this even
with partners, whoever you're living with,
00:50:32.406 --> 00:50:36.483
you should know by now.
[Phone rings] There we go, music to
00:50:36.483 --> 00:50:43.640
give an answer to a talk, that's fine,
that happens, anyway it's not your fault,
00:50:43.640 --> 00:50:47.012
it's your mobile phone's fault,
so don't get angry at you,
00:50:47.012 --> 00:50:53.246
spank your mobile phone, or whatever,
put your mobile phone in detention.
00:50:53.246 --> 00:50:59.549
What was I talking about? Oh yeah,
about being wrong.
00:50:59.549 --> 00:51:04.705
There is no way in the world you will
ever be able to convince your partner
00:51:04.705 --> 00:51:09.228
that he's wrong, no way.
And you should have found that out
00:51:09.228 --> 00:51:13.295
by now, how long have you been
living with that guy?
00:51:13.295 --> 00:51:23.056
You can't do it. Even if you were, say,
the Prime Minister of Germany,
00:51:23.056 --> 00:51:27.086
what's her name again?
Angela Merkel!
00:51:27.086 --> 00:51:30.635
Incredibly smart woman, very powerful,
I'm not sure if she's married,
00:51:30.635 --> 00:51:34.450
but I bet she always loses arguments
with her husband, there's no way she can
00:51:34.450 --> 00:51:41.338
convince her husband he's wrong.
And Obama cannot convince Michelle,
00:51:41.338 --> 00:51:45.611
his wife, she's wrong, it's impossible.
Doesn't matter how powerful, intelligent,
00:51:45.611 --> 00:51:52.121
you are, it cannot be done.
So don't try it. Many husbands say
00:51:52.121 --> 00:51:59.964
"Yes dear, yes dear, I agree with you dear,"
and they go off and do whatever they want. [laughter]
00:51:59.964 --> 00:52:06.298
It's true, so get used to that, wives.
So anyway, we developed,
00:52:06.298 --> 00:52:09.535
if you haven't heard this yet,
I always tell this story when I do weddings,
00:52:09.535 --> 00:52:14.702
another wedding tomorrow afternoon.
There's no way you can convince someone
00:52:14.702 --> 00:52:22.753
they're wrong, so how can you actually
make a decision and actually get on
00:52:22.753 --> 00:52:29.477
in life but not always having to submit.
That really sucks doesn't it?
00:52:29.477 --> 00:52:33.022
He's always right, why do I
always have to agree with him?
00:52:33.022 --> 00:52:39.911
Why does she always have to be right?
So the calendar method, the solution,
00:52:39.911 --> 00:52:45.334
which allows people to live harmoniously
with their partners, the calendar method
00:52:45.334 --> 00:52:51.015
is that when you have an argument,
don't argue who's right and wrong!
00:52:51.015 --> 00:52:57.776
Let the calendar decide!
On the odd days of the month she is right. [laughter]
00:52:57.776 --> 00:53:04.065
The girl is always right on the odd days
of the month. On the even days he is right.
00:53:04.065 --> 00:53:11.722
So that's fair. Today is the 19th, so today
all the girls are right! Yay!
00:53:11.722 --> 00:53:19.092
Be careful, tomorrow he is right. [laughter]
That way you don't have to argue anymore.
00:53:19.092 --> 00:53:25.983
The calendar decides who's right without
any arguments and you can make a decision.
00:53:25.983 --> 00:53:33.051
It's never that bad if the other person makes
a decision, not you, at least it's fair.
00:53:33.051 --> 00:53:36.965
And people have already figured out,
you girls have already figured out,
00:53:36.965 --> 00:53:42.190
you get more days right a year than he does.
Only about four or five,
00:53:42.190 --> 00:53:47.225
but guys, give it to them, it's worth it.
The trouble is, people say,
00:53:47.225 --> 00:53:55.933
what happens if you're in a gay relationship?
[laughter] Then you've got me stumped,
00:53:55.933 --> 00:54:06.669
it doesn't work. Both of you are right on one
day, the next day both of you are wrong. [laughter]
00:54:06.669 --> 00:54:11.376
Anyway, when people tell you you're wrong
I just forget about it, just let them tell you,
00:54:11.376 --> 00:54:14.432
just do it, don't think about it,
and afterwards you realise
00:54:14.432 --> 00:54:17.701
they can tell you whatever they want,
it's just rubbish.
00:54:17.701 --> 00:54:20.519
[Next Question] Do you think there's a link
between tiredness, and the oxygen
00:54:20.519 --> 00:54:23.202
we breathe, pollution or how you breathe?
00:54:23.202 --> 00:54:25.555
There is a little bit of a connection
there because oxygen gives you
00:54:25.555 --> 00:54:31.351
physical energy and if it's not much
oxygen, or it's polluted, or something like that,
00:54:31.351 --> 00:54:36.867
of course that will impact the amount
of oxygen you can breathe in but usually
00:54:36.867 --> 00:54:42.914
the lungs compensate so if there's not
much oxygen coming in you breathe in more.
00:54:42.914 --> 00:54:46.484
That's what happened to me when I
went to Bhutan.
00:54:46.484 --> 00:54:52.169
It was very clear air but there's hardly
any oxygen when you go up to Tiger's Nest,
00:54:52.169 --> 00:54:56.002
because it's very very high up.
At the bottom of that hill
00:54:56.002 --> 00:55:00.637
someone had an energy bar,
a little energy bar like you can buy here,
00:55:00.637 --> 00:55:05.711
a Mars bar or something, but when
they got to the top it ballooned out.
00:55:05.711 --> 00:55:10.188
They showed it to me, it was like a balloon,
because the air temperature at the top
00:55:10.188 --> 00:55:14.930
and bottom was so different that the
pressure inside at the bottom was just
00:55:14.930 --> 00:55:19.378
ordinary pressure but by the time
we got up to the top it was a balloon.
00:55:19.378 --> 00:55:24.008
So that's how high it was, and there was
hardly any oxygen there, but what happens
00:55:24.008 --> 00:55:30.624
is that the lungs breathe in more.
So yeah, there's a little bit between
00:55:30.624 --> 00:55:33.117
the tiredness and the oxygen but not
that much because the body usually
00:55:33.117 --> 00:55:36.478
knows how to compensate.
It doesn't know how to compensate
00:55:36.478 --> 00:55:39.293
when you think too much..
00:55:39.293 --> 00:55:43.608
Dear Ajahn (from London), what can a person
do when they have lost everything in their life
00:55:43.608 --> 00:55:47.767
and have torturous anxiety about the future.
00:55:47.767 --> 00:55:51.557
Remember me, I have lost everything
00:55:51.557 --> 00:55:57.273
in my life. I've lost my degree, it doesn't
count for anything anymore.
00:55:57.273 --> 00:56:01.908
I've lost all my money, haven't got a cent.
I had some money when I was young.
00:56:01.908 --> 00:56:12.158
What else did I lose? I lost girlfriends,
money, possessions, everything.
00:56:12.158 --> 00:56:17.995
I lost all my past, all my memories.
I lost all my fears.
00:56:17.995 --> 00:56:21.792
I've lost my security. I don't have
superannuation. I'm not allowed
00:56:21.792 --> 00:56:25.815
according to how monks agree,
to take a pension.
00:56:25.815 --> 00:56:30.528
I haven't got anything.
What would happen if you didn't
00:56:30.528 --> 00:56:40.199
feed me tomorrow or the day after?
Ah! Now losing everything is not
00:56:40.199 --> 00:56:47.205
the problem, sometimes it gives you
a lot of freedom, you can live simply,
00:56:47.205 --> 00:56:53.394
learn to live simply.
The torturous anxiety, now that,
00:56:53.394 --> 00:56:56.232
you've lost possessions,
but now you're allowing your peace
00:56:56.232 --> 00:57:02.752
to be lost as well. Recently we had a
break-in at Bodhinyana monastery.
00:57:02.752 --> 00:57:07.395
They pinched some chainsaws.
Straightaway, I said they can pinch the
00:57:07.395 --> 00:57:10.375
chainsaws, they can steal that,
but they're not going to steal our
00:57:10.375 --> 00:57:16.325
peace and compassion. We're not going to
worry about that. In fact it turned out
00:57:16.325 --> 00:57:20.064
to be really good because those
chainsaws were quite old and the
00:57:20.064 --> 00:57:24.027
insurance allowed us to get much better
ones. [laughter]
00:57:24.027 --> 00:57:28.543
So if ever that thief is around,
come up here and we'll say thankyou.
00:57:28.543 --> 00:57:32.038
I shouldn't say that but it actually
worked out good in the end.
00:57:32.038 --> 00:57:34.469
They can come into your house
and they can steal your possessions
00:57:34.469 --> 00:57:38.172
but why allow them to steal your
happiness as well?
00:57:38.172 --> 00:57:41.398
You don't need to do that.
So you may have lost all your physical
00:57:41.398 --> 00:57:46.080
possessions, maybe lost your wife,
or your kids, or something,
00:57:46.080 --> 00:57:56.954
but you don't need to lose your happiness.
That is losing your hope.
00:57:56.954 --> 00:58:01.995
So what you can do is restore hope.
See other people, sometimes when we
00:58:01.995 --> 00:58:06.976
have these little groups,
people in the same situation,
00:58:06.976 --> 00:58:12.421
what's that called again?
Therapy groups, peer support groups,
00:58:12.421 --> 00:58:15.344
sometimes when we hear what other
people have gone through, which is similar
00:58:15.344 --> 00:58:23.516
to what we've gone through, it gives us hope
instead of fear and anxiety.
00:58:23.516 --> 00:58:28.141
That's such an important thing to create
in your life - hope.
00:58:28.141 --> 00:58:34.910
So even if you haven't been able to
find a partner in life, don't give up,
00:58:34.910 --> 00:58:42.078
keep on going. If you fear you won't,
then you will not. You can always have hope,
00:58:42.078 --> 00:58:49.184
"yes it's possible", then you're opening the
doors to success. So always look into
00:58:49.184 --> 00:58:56.229
the future with a positive mind and then
your last experience will never take
00:58:56.229 --> 00:59:02.617
away your hope and where there's
hope there is success.
00:59:02.617 --> 00:59:07.767
So thank you to those people. It's 9 o'clock now.
So is there any questions from the floor?
00:59:07.767 --> 00:59:11.742
Good, great, bye bye. [laughter]
00:59:11.742 --> 00:59:14.026
Okay, we're going to bow down to the
Buddha, Dhamma, Sangha.
00:59:14.026 --> 00:59:19.098
I'm sorry if I can't say hello to you,
because I have to rush off and go
00:59:19.098 --> 00:59:24.477
and teach down in Jhana Grove
for a nice retreat.