A Life of Kindfulness - A Tribute to Ajahn Brahm on His 70th Birthday

In all traditions,
it seems to be that when, you know,

how do you get a new lineage
or a new master has developed his lineage?

They have to have something
unique about them that sets them apart.

I remember quite distinctly my
first meeting with Ajahn Brahm,

I think it was 1993.

At the time staying at Vajirarama,

there was an elder German monk
named Bhante Nyanavimala

who had been very dedicated to the
austere, ascetic life.

I told Ajahn Brahm: - You might want to
speak to this German monk

named Venerable Nyanavimala.

I'll arrange a meeting for you.

And then Ajahn Brahm and the other monk
went into the room

and I was sort of hanging back,
should I go in or should I stay back?

I thought maybe let them speak alone
with Venerable Nyanavimala.

And so I stayed back in my room

and I heard Venerable Nyanavimala’s
sort of thundering voice, you know

it was going on and on and on.

And I was thinking, wow,
I cheated myself out of listening

to a wonderful discourse from
Venerable Nyanavimala.

At a certain point the door opened up and
Ajahn Brahm and the other monk came out

I looked at Ajahn Brahm and it looked
like he had stars sparkling in his eyes.

He said, wow, that was one of the best
discourses that I've ever heard.

In 1981 there was a group of
West Australians from Perth of all places,

I’d never been to Perth,

they came to visit Wat Pah Pong
and they went to visit Wat Nanachat.

Their intention was to try and invite
western teachers or western monks

to go back to Australia,

in particular to go to Perth
to establish a forest monastery.

Which was a bit, you know,
kind of ambitious

looking back at the condition of the
Buddhist Society of Western Australia

in those days.

It was a very small group
but they were very, very dedicated.

Ajahn Chah was not really keen on
doing it at the beginning

primarily because most of us were
still very young monks

and Perth was a long way away.

There were plenty of times, I think,

when the monks probably
went hungry on days.

There were times I know when
Ajahn Jagaro and Ajahn Brahm,

when he was the junior to Ajahn Jagaro,

they knew that they had food in the
fridge but they couldn’t take it

because there had been no lay people
to turn up to offer it.

So these sorts of things were no doubt
very difficult for the monks

and probably why venerable Puriso ended up
heading back to Bangkok

and he was replaced by Ajahn Brahm.

And what a monk, you know,
he turned out to be really.

When he came he was skinny.

He was really very, very thin.

Ajahn Jagaro had told me
“this man is a monk's monk”.

We get up at three in the morning

and then we have a chanting or
group meditation at four o’clock

which usually goes on till
Just before dawn

Just before dawn
we collectively tidy up the eating hall

and when it's tidied up we go on our
alms round for about an hour and a half

There was some somewhat curious kind of
conference in Japan

of monastics from all over the world

and Ajahn Brahm was part of the
Australian group.

And he does this thing...

He holds up a glass - I don't have a glass
I just have this kind of thing.

I'll never forget this.
So he holds up this glass and asks me:

"Analayo, how to ensure that the water is
completely still?"

And I started thinking, hmm,

I have to relax the shoulders,
hold it very softly.

And then he just put the glass down
with a thump, and let it go.

And this has completely transformed my
understanding and cultivation

of concentration.

Afterwards, sitting with it in practice
and putting it into practice,

I got a completely different understanding

of what concentration was,
what samadhi was

what samatha, tranquility, what they mean.

And that it is much more
about just letting go

and letting the mind naturally rest
in itself and collect itself.

And this has been such an
important help for me,

for my own practice, and it forms also
the way I teach meditation.

I happened to pick up some CDs from
various western monks

and I had a bit of a prejudice
to western monks

because I thought they don’t really
understand the depths of the Dhamma.

The real teachings are in Asia, you know

with these monks who’ve been ordained
since they were five (laughs)

Like my own teacher had.

So I hadn’t been that interested.

But then I saw another CD
with the name of someone I didn’t know,

and it said, Ajahn Brahmavamso.

And I thought OK I’ll listen for a change.
Something in English,

because my teachers spoke only in Burmese.

I put this talk on and after the
first talk I was blown away

because I'd never heard a talk
on that particular subject

with such clarity and context.

By the second talk
my whole body was full of piti,

and I just had this kind of heart opening
where I felt

I have to find this person;
I have to find this teacher.

Chanting

What he shows is his lifestyle
and the way he behaves

and the way he preaches the Dhamma,

it's very, very important for us.

And even when he talks about meditation,

when he talks about samadhi
in a different way,

he doesn't call it real concentration.

He calls it calming down
and being at one pointed.

It's a different way that he does it.
So it's not the normal way.

That is very inspiring also for us,
for the monk.

I mean, to laypeople,
all his jokes are very helpful.

But for a monk when we are monks

it's his lifestyle that
really helps us a lot

and we see that he's practicing
what he's speaking

and that's inspiring for us.

I think the Buddha was
very flexible when he spoke.

He spoke to people
just on their normal life.

He spoke to farmers.
He spoke to many different people.

And so you can't take the canon and say,
"look here, that's the only way".

The whole thing in it is
try to inspire other people.

And depending on the situation,
if you speak, then that's useful.

You speak to them depending on
how it would fit into their environment.

And I think Ajahn Brahm:
he does that very well.

It doesn't have to be
straight out of the book,

but it has to be in a way that people
can understand it

and people get inspired by it.

And I think he's very successful.

Over the years, I've seen that he gives
much more accessible, popular talks

on issues and problems
related to people in lay life.

And over the years, because of that,
I know that he has

helped to make the Dharma accessible and
available and meaningful to lay people.

Speaking in ways
that address their actual,

very real, concrete problems
of living a Buddhist life in the world.

There was a Facebook fan page for
Ajahn Brahm.

Out of curiosity I looked,
this would have been years ago.

I looked at the number of fans
on that page.

And of curiosity, I looked at the
fan page

for the Rolling Stones.

That time Ajahn Brahm
had more fans than the Rolling Stones.

He's written so many books, and
"Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond",

for example, teaches people
how to meditate

and teaches people that meditation
is not prayers, it's not contemplation.

I think a lot of people think

meditation is like
you go there and you ask for things.

His emphasis on samatha vipassana being...
it's not one or the other.

That it's the tranquillity and insight.

Which is actually very very much
what Ajahn Chah said and stressed.

But often in many Buddhist circles,
even today, I mean, there is this

talking in a way that, again,
sets up this, ...

you either do one or the other,

and if you do this one, you don't do that.

So his emphasis once again
on the need for deep concentration,

his clear instructions on how to
develop those states,

I think have brought a lot of,

a kind of reinvigoration in the
practice of meditation

within the Buddhist tradition.

When I visited Wat Pah Nanachat in
northeast Thailand,

I happened to read
Ajahn Brahm’s meditation book,

Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond,

When I read this book,

I screamed "Eureka!"

By reading the book

my unsolved puzzle of
meditation was totally solved.

I started meditation when I was a
freshman in university

and I practiced very hard with
my willpower.

I met many teachers, read many books
about meditation,

but there was no teacher.

There was no books teaching "letting go",

teaching, abandoning of willpower.

I was lucky to stay with him in
Bodhinyana Monastery in Australia.

I learned a lot from him, by his teaching,

behavior,

by attitude.

My early recollections of Ajahn Brahm
are pretty consistent

that he always struck me as a
very happy person

a good natured, happy person,
very positive.

Very rarely expressed any sense of
negativity

or any sense of being down.

He just seemed to be one who's upbeat,
good energy, friendly to everyone.

I don't think there was anyone
who didn't get along with Ajahn Brahm.

There were other monks who didn't
get along with each other.

Everybody got along well with Ajahn

and he seemed to get along well
with everybody.

Just from looking at him, he appears
like most Westerners in general.

Good physical form and bearing…

He is likable,
speaks in a forthright manner.

I once asked him how he managed
with the food when he lived here.

He said he was able to eat Isaan food.
But when he moved to Perth,

he stopped being able to eat Isaan food.
It became too spicy.

Living in the West again, his tongue
became reacclimated to Western food.

When he lived in Thailand
he was able to eat Isaan food.

But later he couldn’t anymore. Spicy.

We used to prepare it for him.

Now we have to prepare two kinds.
Pizza, that kind of thing.

I remember early days
when I listened to his talks,

I used to get lots of piti sukha.

I was always in tears and
lots of happiness,

it always inspired me.

Without him I don't think it's possible
we have Dhammasara,

we have so many bhikkhunis.

Sometimes some people can talk
really well,

but they may not

really be walking the talk,

but he's someone who really can
talk the walk and he can walk the talk.

When Ajahn Brahm and the bhikkhu sangha
from Australia

gave ordination to the women

in the year 2009

it was something that ---
I was very moved.

I was very moved that

that actually my brother,
my bhikkhu brothers,

still understand the texts,

still read the texts in the spirit
that the Buddha wanted it to be.

So it is really a big message for me.

I never mentioned that to him, you know,

but it meant a great deal to someone
who was fighting alone at that time.

Sorry! Sorry to ... sorry to shed tears,

but just to tell you how important
of his movement

and for the sangha movement,
Theravada sangha movement.

I would never have been able to come
to the situation which I am now

if I had been a woman.

I would not have so easily become a monk.

It would not have been so easy for me
to find places.

I would not have gotten all the support.

And this is just really unfair.

And in the case of discrimination,

those of us who are beneficiaries
of that system,

without having feelings of guilt,
but we have to take responsibility.

And we have to take that step forward
to addressing such discrimination.

And I'm very glad that Ajahm Brahm,
and also Bhikkhu Bodhi,

are very outspoken on this,

and also Bhante Gunaratana,

that there are some really
important and eminent monks

who take a very clear position on that.

Ajahn Brahmavamso - I worship him

because he is the one person
who took a very, very strong step

against the later developed tradition.

They are all traditional monks,
they are not keeping to the Buddha.

Unfortunately the cultural aspects
of a country

sometimes take over the original tenents
of a religion.

And that's what happened with Buddhism.

But Ajahn Brahm saw beyond that.

And he ordained bhikkhunis following the
original teachings of the Buddha.

The Buddha said that
you need the bhikkhus,

the bhikkhunis, the lay men and lay women
to be established in the dhamma.

And he even went so far as to say
he wouldn't enter Parinibbana

until that fourfold assembly was strong.

And, you know, they were practicing
the true teachings,

they were able to teach others,

they were able to preserve
the words of the Buddha.

I think if Asian Theravada Buddhism
is going to move into the 21st century,

they have to outgrow these
constricting, confining ideas

inherited from basically a medieval
way of thinking.

I knew Ajahn Brahm from books.

And then later on I met him in
Bodhinyana

when there was an upasampada
for the four bhikkhunis,

Ajahn Vayama, Ven Seri, Ven Nirodha
and Ven Hasapanna.

We are grateful to Ajahn Brahm
as he is very brave.

He cares for the revival of
one of the pillars of the sasana.

The disciples of Ajahn Brahm
are very brave too.

I'm glad that we didn't withdraw,
we just went ahead with the ordination

because it's quite stressed, you know,
when someone keeps telling you

that you are doing something
that is really...

like for example, causing a schism,
you know.

Sometimes it really makes you feel bad,
terrible, you're causing so much trouble,

problem to the sangha, you know,
things like that.

I'm only keeping more precepts.
I haven't done anything -

- harming anyone else.

I'd heard of his stand in favour of women,

or women becoming nuns and so on,

and how shockingly he was treated
in Thailand.

I do think that is one of the
most important topics

one can possibly discuss in talking about
modern Buddhism.

Ajahn Brahm loves the Dhamma.
Ajahn Brahm is a good monk.

He is a monk par excellence.

He is well-mannered, responsible,
and self-sacrificing.

You don’t have to be under the authority
of Wat Nong Pah Pong, or anybody.

You are still disciple of Ajahn Chah.

You are still disciples of the Buddha.

So you are in Perth, Ajahn Brahm,
you have to be your own persons.

Be happy, be courageous, be number one.

The advantage is that Ajahn Brahm
can do things his own way.

He doesn't have to report so much

or be questioned so much
to keep so closely

to some of the etiquette and
cultural norms that are quite important

within that family,

that are not necessarily fundamental
to the monastic training actually.

It's Thai or Thai cultural things.

So he can be free of that restraint.

and allows him to shape his style
in his presentation,

his teachings,
the monasteries that he looks after,

the monks that he trains.

It gives him greater freedom

to shape the monastic tradition
that is his legacy, if you wish.

Sometimes it shows you
when you are ready for certain things.

Then it kind of...
things connect together naturally

because you are ready to see it that way.

Marvellous!

Ajahn Brahmali,
I've got a question for you

[questioner] If you do a fairly regular
meditation practice

Western Buddhism is really
explaining Buddhism

in the way it ought to be explained,

it's not about ancestor worship,
it's not about praying to the Buddha,

it's about understanding the
four noble truths,

it's about right understanding.

And that's what Ajahn Brahm
is brilliant for.

And he's providing a unique,
a unique style of teaching.

And the biggest loser in the whole world
was the Buddha himself.

He was the biggest loser.
He lost everything.

So my advice to you is "please, get lost!"

(laughing)

It's what we're doing,
we're losing everything.

Losing our attachments.

Losing all our ideas of just attainments
with losing things.

Disappearing. Vanishing.
That's the Path

I think when people see him,

if they just meet him and see him
and it's all so, you know, jokes and fun.

I think it makes it sound,

it somehow detracts maybe from
the seriousness of his practice.

His teaching has always been focused
on getting people to Nibbana.

In that sense it is very narrow,

but he manages to do it in a way
that reaches a lot of people.

One of the under appreciated
skills is that ability

to reach a huge amount of people
and to inspire a huge amount of people

with Dhamma teachings that are
very simple and very accessible

but that also will lead to those
very profound insights and

breakthroughs and states of meditation.

A lot of the time people will take
these very high teachings

like jhanas or Nibbana and so on

and they'll water them down
and dumb them down

so they can ostensibly reach them out
to a greater audience.

Ajahn Brahm never does that.

What he does is show that there are
real and meaningful teachings

that are easy and simple and accessible

that everybody can apply
right here and now.

And if you develop those
you can aspire to, and even realise,

these great and powerful
and deep and profound things.

The way that he's been able to get the
Dhamma out into the mainstream en masse

through the talks that are recorded

on YouTube,
on the BSWA YouTube channel,

he's bringing the Dhamma
to a really wide audience,

people who maybe have never even shown an
interest in Buddhism or meditation before.

So his talks are relevant,
they're about daily life.

He talks about dealing with
difficult people, dealing with emotions,

how to overcome resentment.

These kind of things speak to everybody.

How to live an ethically upright life
in the world,

how to apply Buddhist ethics to the
different dilemmas and challenges we face.

How to use Buddhist, contemplative and
meditative practices to

make our minds more
adaptable and functional

in our daily interactions
with other people

and facing difficult situations
within the world.

Yeah, I think Ajahn Brahm has done
a very good job of presenting

the teachings in that way.

Ajahn is actually contributing
to the entire Buddhist community

internationally.

Because he has this monk's factory here
and the monks factory is already

completely full
and with a long waiting list.

And the people who are undergoing
training here

come from different countries.
It is an international group of people.

Many places in the
Buddhist countries

we could hardly get people
who want to become monks.

But down here you've got a long
waiting list.

And we think that these will help
to contribute later on

when the monks have undergone
their training

they will help to bring up the
entire community.

He has a manufacturing plant for monks,
they're all lining up.

Actually I came to know Ajahn Brahm
when I had just ordained as a monk.

I was listening to Dhamma talks
at Bhavana society,

starting with Bhikkhu Bodhi.

But Bhikkhus Bodhi's talks were very deep
and very profound and very scholarly.

So after listening all talks of
Bhikkhu Bodhi,

I Googled and found out Ajahn Brahm talk.

And I found out it had a
very good sense of humor.

He's one of the earlier Western monks
to really balance study and practice,

instituted that as the approach.

and that these are not mutually
exclusive which was,

especially in the Thai tradition,

this was, you know,
kind of one of the big divides.

Practice monks don't study,
study monks don't practice.

Thai monks mostly follow the
cultural things,

so they pay respect to their king.

In the same way

the monks respect to the
chief monk or the abbot.

So once you come here,
no such relationship

between the junior monks
and senior monks.

So it is difficult to build up.
It takes time to build up.

So that's why it is good to send
monks to Thailand

and get a training and come back.

Now can't send like that.

So then they get that attitude,
how to deal with the chief monk.

But here, now, they can't get that.

So he has to deal with monks
in a much more skillful way.

So that's why I think Ajahn Brahm
is really skillful in dealing,

because the democratic way
that is how the Lord Buddha taught us.

So how to deal with people and
how to Vinayakamma,

do Vinaya and practice Vinaya.

It is exactly following the
Lord Buddha's way.

The way Ajahn Brahm teaches Dhamma

it's not just the Buddhists
who receive the benefit

but also the non-Buddhists.

And this is what the Dhamma is all about,

for the goodness, the wellbeing,
the happiness of all beings.

And by doing that Ajahn Brahm makes
the whole Dhamma goal get achieved.

He provides this beautiful,
beautiful place,

one of a kind in the world,

to give people such a nice place
to practice.

I've been to different places to practice.
You can't beat that, you know.

So I appreciate Ajahn's insight
or foresight to provide this.

And everywhere he has the teaching tour,
he has the meditation retreat,

to me, it's the experiencing the
Dhamma again,

not just listening.

So experiencing, practising, learning,

that is the only way to me to accumulate
the wisdom, your own wisdom.

When I learned from Ajahn Brahm about
"Do nothing"

I finally experienced the
nimitta for the first time.

It was completely different from the
nimitta at Pah Awk.

Throughout the "Do nothing" practice here

I completely understood the
Buddha's teaching.

When I returned to Korea I tried to teach
a hybrid of traditional Korean teaching

and the Buddha's original
according to Ajahn Brahm.

My 30 years of traditional practice
has been changed

by just one course from Ajahn Brahm.

Everybody learning the original
Buddhist teaching

knows Ajahn Brahm's great practice.

I'm so grateful and thankful to
Ajahn Brahm and his group here.

Two years ago, when we drew up a
program for him in Malaysia,

he wrote back, he said,

"Victor, I'm no longer young!
I'm an old monk."

So now we really have to be careful,
because sometimes we do not realize

that the people we are with us are
actually getting older.

And as teachers gets older,
we need to take care of them better.

In the six years I know him,
he has been working very hard

and I do wish him to have more self care.
That's my wish

and to really, really absorb,

receive everyone's love and respect,
appreciation, gratitude.

This Ajahn Brahm.
That Ajahn Brahm.

I don't know him at all,
he's a figment of my imagination.

He is a mirage. He is a delusion.

He is like a magician's trick
at the crossroads.

What is your favourite story with
Ajahn Brahm?

The favourite story with Ajahn Brahm is
when he was having an interview

and he got fed up.
So he decided to walk out.

Bye! Bye!

(laughs)