-
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)