Buddhism & Cats | Ajahn Brahm | 1 June 2018

so for today's little Dhamma talk I was reminded that I've taught about many subjects and recently I was talking about because it was the Chinese New Year the year of the dog I taught her Buddhism and dogs so tonight I thought I'd talk about Buddhism and cats and one good reason for that is because now here in Australia especially in the bush the cats are introduced species just like most of us human beings here who come from overseas and sometimes do we really fit in and so in Australia especially cats all got sort of quite a bad reputation but nevertheless know they are here and sometimes things which are not respected sometimes you tend to find extra compassion for know people who are rejected from society who are on the edge of society if you're afraid and not really have a place but certainly that know the cats have you know these little domestic cats you see them they're very very lovable and but they're independent but they're also very wise and smart and so what place do they have you know in sort of a religion which is like Buddhism first of all they are kin but they can be just a great symbol of have something much deeper than just like a killer because sometimes those cats can be incredibly smart and certainly one of the reasons I'm not saying about cats is because it even in ancient Egypt in Egyptian culture the cats were very mystical beings and there's many statues of cats and I'm not quite sure what the connection was with the cat and the Egyptian culture but I was just told today just by somebody that they went to a some ceremony I think they said in in Cornwall and as they came out he's with his sister if I get this right he can correct me afterwards but these two cats came out and one of the cats said to them hello a cat who could speak which is a bit spooky and then I was sort of telling all these other stories which about things which aren't supposed to speak which did speak but he was saying afterwards you know sister you know he thought he just was know maybe it's just he just imagined it maybe it was like a special type of meow who was you know which meant sort of something a little bit weird and who didn't hear it correctly but his sister said Alfred yeah that's what it said it said hello to people heard it now first of all sometimes that it stretches our belief system and I love it when it stretches our belief system instead of just saying oh it couldn't have happened maybe it could and that was where we had a conversation afterwards this is not about cats but about babies speaking and which is weird because it was that story first of all of hearing australia's young couple don't know where they've got to but they came to see us I think he was here and they weren't Buddhist they weren't meditators but they had such a spooky experience they knew the input us and we believed about no reincarnation many births many lives and we can go from many species to another species and they were just just came very shocked and I thought the Buddhists might be the ones who could actually explain a weird stuff to them because what had happened they they just had their second child both two boys and this was the Peter Paul story and the the second child the youngest one had just only been born in a few days and just came back from hospital and having come back from hospital was in I don't know what the baby carried the pram he's got it pram before but it's whatever they put the baby in don't ask me I'm a monk I don't know much about babies except every now and again we do a little ceremony important so most people actually offer the baby and I've got to know cut their hair it was like a Thai tradition the first haircut in Bangladesh is given the first first spoon of solid food and there's many many things I feel very comfortable with but I always get a bit scared when they give me just a pair of scissors of the first haircut of the baby in case it certainly got more than his hair off but even worse sometimes they actually entirely said she offer you the baby you know this more than most like like a baptism like making it like that Godfather the you know the Buddha father the monk father thank you for laughing that's made my day and they pushed me on there and on the road and I just try and do the blessing whatever is as soon as possible in case it Poussin the you know and because okay yeah and it's got the nappy on but the smell goes through then just and they got to go overseas tomorrow and but anyway just these couple came and they said the the new baby and I was in the the cot and the eldest son Peter just they told him go and say goodnight to your baby brother Paul and so you know did his back two or three years of age he leant over the little cot and he just said goodnight Paul and that was when Peter so that was when Paul replied good night Peter and that was weird because they heard it very clearly and they didn't know what to do and they were just stunned staring just in disbelief but without any prompting the Peter said again to his baby brother good night Paul and this time they were both paying full attention not imagining it listen so clearly and they said good night Peter again they were so stunned because this was not imagination anymore they heard it clearly real story another joke so they came to see so the Buddhist monks maybe you can explain it and of course we have other stories where where people taught when they were just just born why not it happened and just like and the end of their end of life we have this thing called lucid dreaming so no so that's not a such a mess another phenomena of terminal lucidity just before a person passes away sometimes I've been in coma for days sometimes as their brain has just been overtaken this by a by a tumor maybe because they've just got no hardly any consciousness left no brain left but then they suddenly just wake up open their eyes and they become lucid without any reason they can talk and I can remember everything they've got no brain left these are weird things which happen which in Buddhism it's when the mind takes over it's not the body anymore because the body doesn't know four little babies got no brain structures left lis the neural connections haven't been made yet for their using something which was from the previous life the same as the terminal lucidity at the end of a person's life and this has happened for so many people even here there was a doctor I don't know if he's here this evening male doctor and he said that he was looking after a patient and he's got the the the warning come to his bedside straight away because the dyeing process had already begun much sooner than expected and the patient's older guy in a coma and so all he could do is just open the the drawer next to the bedside cabinet take out the address book and ring as many of the relations as possible together to come to the hospital now your father is dying and he was calling his this guy's daughter if I remember correctly the guy's daughter was called Julie and he was calling her on the phone Julie get to the hospital now your father's now passing away you know now and then he opened his eyes and he said tell Julie I love her and then he closed his eyes and died right there he heard his daughter's name he shouldn't be able to talk at all at that stage came out of the coma said tell Julie how much I loved her and then died terminal lucidity the same as when a person just is born sometimes they have that lucidity and of course it was once you mentioned that those stories which should not really be able to happen other people come and tell me their stories as well because I remember one of the first times I say that there was a Malaysian couple and they said we never ever would actually tell anybody this but seeing as how you brought it up you know that happened to our kid as well that also talked as soon as it was born we never told anybody because they thought that they think we're crazy that we're married or on drugs or whatever but it actually happened but the best story for those who ever go on retreats I often tell this story during retreats was when apparently was in the United States somewhere and this was actually in the in a hospital when the baby came out of the womb and they reported it's the the midwives and nurses whoever whoever delivered the baby said this it was true as soon as the baby came out of the womb still attached to the umbilical cord and he looked around and said the unforgettable words said in very clear words oh no not again not again so anyway that's very true so anyway like a cat will come in you you know it's weird but sometimes you don't just dismiss things then maybe there is something weird happening and sometimes a lot of times we we just have this great superiority complex as the human race think we're so far far far above the animal realm that maybe sometimes we're not so that's why that sometimes you know the experience you have just even with cats being reborn there was you know I used to go quite often too I still go very often to Malaysia to Kuala Lumpur and with this group I've been looking after for a long time and there was this great monk who used to be alive in the Brickfields temple dr. case we'd Amin and he's been here many many times and before he passed away and it's very very good monk it's very very open and this very innovative as well he's written many many books here which well worth reading very down to earth and very very wise and he was told me and I saw the picture saw that the cat but one day in his temple obviously this was one of the poor passes at the Indian area of Kuala Lumpur big fields and just in that in that area of course you knows many many wild cats and one day this cat just ran into the temple just ran from nowhere and they have their main shrine room and he went right past there everybody into the main shrine room right in front of the Big Buddha statue and it stood on its two hind legs two front legs up together two paws looking up at the Buddha and I saw that cat and I saw they had a photograph of it and I remember telling that dr. case we done went under he said look you know he said this is amazing you shouldn't let people know this and he said no no please don't tell anybody because he didn't want that cat you know to become some sort of celebrity some sort of person who everybody would come to the temple just to see that that's not the point of having a Buddhist monastery you know these sorts of things we try and keep it quiet but I know this was quite a long time ago now but that was amazing I never seen a cat ever do that you know come right up just by itself not trained or anything you know just come up and just put its hand up and actually just to worship the Buddha weird I've never seen the pictures of it but where did that come from there's obviously just no was a reborn there's no from a human being to that but anyway that cat was very smart the rest of its life it never had to worry about food never had to be worried about a nice warm place to stay that cat was protected and so sometimes when we have the idea of reincarnation of it was a little video of a cat in a Korean temple or something which will go to the chart he would always sit there but there was not as impressive as this amazing cat which I saw that was really sort of weird and spooky but there we go but anyway that they have sometimes it's not right to serve demean a person because you know if they're the almost that they have no choice they're just as in their genes to sort of hunt birds and stuff in the in the forest that's why that sometimes we don't like to have cats you know in forest monasteries where they will chase all the birds and I you do a lot of destruction to native wildlife and that was the reason why that you know we had this one Wildcats many many years ago and this again changed a lot of attitude to know how I looked at cat see I know about cats being very kind and that even this cat in Kuala Lumpur which was amazing cat I've never seen anything like that before but we had little cats who was he was a feral cat or whether the the the the young of a feral cat little kitten who was actually born in a log you know in a hollow log over in bodhinyana monastery and serpentine and I think I forget who it was who found it but amanda's you know the Onagawa Kano's that kept very well near that carefully well so that little cat just go up with us and it was a really smart cat you know and it would be playful sometimes that little cat when the monks were going on a walk in the bush the cat would always come along and just follow us and sometimes but it would it would hide behind a bush and jump out at me playful and I could never forget that time in one of those little Hut's it was to sleep outside the hut you know just there was a little mat outside and there's buddy's really cold mornings like no we've had recently you know I was you know he's asleep on the floor in a sleeping bag and so in the morning you know used to get up at 4 o'clock and of course the first thing you do we don't have real toilets over there and so I thought oh just go out in the forest know a little place where you can urinate and as soon as I open the door no to have a pee the cat outside just ran straight inside my heart and went straight inside my sleeping bag to the very bottom which was a warmest part still warm I don't have got out there for know for a minute ago and he would not come out or she wouldn't stayed admit and it was the Sun came up and he got warm and so it had lots of these lovely little times with little KitKat record it but then what happened with KitKat what was really weird and of course is many people know about this story that it got to the time where the cat catching too much birds know in in a forest we put a bell on it but you know we know what happens with you put a bell on a cat it just makes them become more mindful and it's amazing to us they can move without that bell going off at all and so just made them more sneaky to catch so after a while what we did it was it was hard for me I must admit because you know you like that cat was just so friendly and so it's almost like my cat so we had to just find a home for it in the city somewhere and that cat you know we know for 100% sure was born in that forest monastery and the only time he'd ever gone out of the monastery was actually to go to get well and we call it like monastics so I wouldn't have any kittens okay desexed but anyway we call it metastasized in the vet in Byford and even though I just felt really nasty about having to take it in there because it trusted me 100% but I had to do it came back again it was fine well I was a member ages I went to collect it and it was just half in sedation but as soon as it came out kingsby driving well cough and he could smell the area and he was just really sort of you know waking up from the the sedatives the anesthetic because it was compared to its home territory and of course afterwards it was there for a few years but then when it got to the point that we had to get rid of the cat so you know you can't put it down or anything he just find a nice home for it somewhere and so we found a home was one of our ex-presidents here and Dennis still here no I think this has to go but that was Chris Banks and she was living in Waterman you know you know where Waterman is from here is by the I was about we had about 10 or 12 kilometers it's on the on the coast know by the beach and so we took it there and again it's one of those things I felt I was no breaking the trust of his cat this cat trusted me 100% so when I sort of caught it and just cuddled it and then I put it in a bag I didn't want it to see where I was going and then put it in the back of Chris's car in the in the place your feet go so couldn't see where she was going because you know felt very bad that day that you know just you said this cat was trusted you 100% we had to protect the birds and she took it with there was another cat there as well even though that cats are supposed to fight those two cats when it got time for the cold weather they'd always cuddled up together noticed the keep warm really cute and any way that we took them up to a Waterman and her she kept it in the bag they went inside the house when they went inside the house in water months she kept it inside the house for three days now to get used to the house and to Fortran forget know the forests and the monks with which it used to live and of course first day she let that cow and cat out into the garden and that cats cute cat bolted for the gate and just went right must have a space underneath it underneath the gate the garden gate and down the road and this Chris tried to run after it couldn't catch it so go into her car and started searching for it search for it for a couple of hours and then sort of gave up it was a Saturday afternoon during the summer time and I was on duty here in nollamara temple and just where that their office is now we'll have our meetings we built that office only a few years ago used to be the main main door to enter this place a wooden door and I just happened to be outside that dot on this side of the door inside when I heard yeah I know if you've no live with a an animal a dog or a cat you know that's hey I know that sound that meow every sound is different and I opened the door and there was a KitKat outside and I know for a fact because it's just a few moments later that Chris Opitz Banks ex-president she called and she said a jumper I just sorry to tell you this you know that I've lost your cat I chased it but it's gone and of course I said as I've lost it it's here with me in nollamara Center in that room and she couldn't believe it so she I think is he she got in a car and came here just to check out that it wasn't one of my jokes it was actually real but that poor cat because I knew at timed it 2 hours almost no to the minute from water man's to nollamara the freeway no the the Mitchell freeway was there so I don't know how it made it here but it's poor pause you know we're just just so hot because it had been running through that you know the hot you know no shoes that obviously and just it was almost burning and of course you know as soon as you recognize it was kicker if you gave it sort of a saucer of milk and another source of mere another source of meat it was so dehydrated and then it sort of took arrest on at that time I wasn't the abbot I was number two monk and the abbot was at James aqua and he just went on top of his his seat had over there and peed all over it it was stressed out that forecast so yeah its tag for a couple of weeks but come on you gotta let the cat you know just have a bit of understand where it's been through so we try to wash it after they can get but afterwards it's amazing that it found its way in two hours know about I think my fluffy about ten kilometers were Waterman to here and it never been in the Perth metropolitan area ever in its life that was fact could prove that and how it could find me and well yeah you know sometimes you know you you don't wash your rows for a couple of days but and I even I that we could smell that from such a far distance but it managed sexy to get know from Waterman to nollamara he said it actually going all the way to serpentine this is too far much smarter than that take the shortcut and find somebody who it knew really well and they found me in two hours and I was just amazing and after there of course you know what I realized these cats are really smart they're you know like all right could you do that now you can't no to UPS in those days you can't call the RAC you can't ask a policeman please can you tell me the way to the Buddhist temple even most policemen wouldn't know which way we work where we were when that famous or well-known in those days but still it found you so quickly so of course after that that cat just had had no he had to take it back to monastery it's waste of time trying to get it out but he would just come back again too smart for us much smarter than me so anyway that it was weird that that happened and of course we had a not as amazing but a similar experience happened a couple of years ago and again it's roughly about this time when his lovely cat turned up and it turned up voting on a monastery and he was obviously sort of domesticated because you know it was very friendly a very furry cat you know lots of hair and just no really friendly and of course you know it's really hard after a while for you know for the to take it away from the monks you know because imagine like monks you know we don't have kids you don't have a wife have a nice little cat and you can have a wonderful liking emotional connection to a nice little cat and you're not breaking any rules by stroking it or cuddling it so it was it was so well known so it's came just the beginning of the arranged retreat and you know he asked around in a local area there was any one lost the cat and no one had lost a cat anywhere and local area and so it's just in the end after three months we thought okay might as well adopt this cat and so friendly and so easy to look after and didn't chase any birds it was very good cat and then afterwards we had to take it to again the local vet you know because you have to get some chips I think inserted into the the cat know for like the law you know to be registered so took it to local vet and then when we came back again the local vet said it's already got a chip in it his name is George and it comes from South Perth so we found when we rag up the owners and I wonder where George was going and we realized that what George had done he just came to Bodine Jana monastery for the rains retreat for meditation and many other people really try hard to actually to get on the list to come speak on long retrieve like that and so that's what George did so he came to a nice little holiday with the max but how he got from South Perth no else we never seen it before wasn't one of our members or anything you know just well there he said I don't know how he got to it doesn't go very far somehow they must have had like a Buddhist connection and decided okay now this made some merit by looking after the Buddhist monks because there's a lot of Merit you know allowing the Buddhist monks audacity to note that crack now create sort of loving-kindness it's a meta because of course little animals they do create give the opportunity like for get some kindness and and get some loving kindness and compassion coming up and that's one of the reasons why people do have like dogs and cats because no sometimes you have a husband you have a wife I mean sometimes kids are just really but it's amazing that sometimes these know the cats and the dogs they just adopt and they're so kind to you and you know you can relate to some compassion there and kindness and that was one of the reasons why that I started using that to actually to do compassion kindness forgiveness because that was the story where we had a new young Australian man who wanted to start his training to become a Buddhist monk so when a person was to become a Buddhist monk same with the Dhamma start to become a Buddhist nun they don't just come in and ordain may God have so trained first of all I've got to make sure that they understand what a Buddhist my Buddhist monastery is and how it works and we have to get to know them as well and so this young man came in explained to him know the training and first of all when you become like a nagarkar you know which is you know just yeah it means like you know you leave home you just knew you first bit of renunciation and this we explained to him as a nun ago you've got to keep what we call the eight precepts and you've seen that over here last ways that day that many people kept the eight precepts and one of the most important ones is you don't eat in the afternoon or the evening you know you just go without food you're fast when I say fasting it doesn't mean you go to McDonald's to take fast food that's not what it means that you know you just have a good meal before lunch before noon and then afterwards you just just see how cups of tea you can have honey cheese chocolate that sort of stuff but anyway just that's only if you need it so you just you know usually have enough for the one day and that's not a hard thing to do because having three or four meals a day that is so modern you go in history and and people would have only have maybe two meals a day maybe a hundred years ago in the morning have a light breakfast and the main meal would always be in the evening when he came back home from work you go earlier in history and people would only have one meal a day and that would be a you see in the evening you know when you again come back from work in the farming economies and if you go earlier back then you'd only eat sort of one with every few days whenever you catch a woolly mammoth or or something through it's so you know it's not quite okay just to do without food you know what happens it's as long as you're in a supportive environment like a monastery where everyone else is no keeping a precepts you don't even think about it because you don't see food you don't smell food you don't be a pear food so it doesn't really matter but now the what is really difficult is sometimes you know I go to these functions you know and they have these functions in the evenings you know they want to invite you you know to a state dinner or to a celebratory dinner or a fundraising dinner and sometimes and I get invited to those a lot and I remember once it was a fiftieth anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and Amnesty International here in Perth wanted to do a set up celebratory dinner you know to celebrate the the 15th anniversary is the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and they wanted me to come along give a speech they sent me this official invitation Amnesty International so I sent a letter back to them return of post and I said thank you for your invitation I'm very honored but I have to refuse for the following reasons being a monk I will not be able to eat any of that delicious food you put in front of me you probably have wine which I also will not be able to eat and I'll be watching you all the time enjoying your food and drinking your drinks that is a form of torture which Amnesty International should never conduct I'm not coming so I refuse but anyway so we don't have things to eat in the evening but of course when you first know you just your body takes a while to adjust and so this young man sort of he came to see me one morning and he was really really upset he hadn't slept that night he said I don't um I need to confess something I feel so guilty because I broke my precepts last night I was hungry I went into the kitchen we should not locked in going any old time I went into the kitchen I made myself a sandwich and I ate it I'm terribly sorry I know I wasn't very rich and he had no understanding of what Buddhism is you know it's just now begin to understand it and I just told him oh well that's wonderful thank you for telling me it's important you actually you don't keep all these things hidden but you just confess them bring it up let me know then I said look number one eat more at lunchtime it was a simple thing because when I first became a monk I was getting really hungry and I you know asked one of my fellow monks as a wor give me some tips and there's some meditation I can do so I can not think about my tummy and you know give me some other exercises or something you know what he said he said eat more rice I never thought of that an obvious solution so I had more rice no problem solved so you know sometimes we look for witty weird solutions rather than the obvious one now if you're tied to meditation what should you do give me a nice practice so I'm not so tired when I meditate so well go to sleep don't worry so much but anyway this particular fellow I told him look these are the things you for me eat more at lunchtime you can now take some say honey in the evening that's an allowable if you really need it and so I told more other things which I know thank you very much and I said he can go now but you know what he said next he said well are you gonna punish me we're talking about well you know you've got a I've done something wrong I've broken an important rule finally gonna sort of give me a penance or a punishment to which I told him we don't do punishments in in Buddhism it's one of the things we say I was really impressed with now the idea giving her a punishment to be a deterrence so you won't do it next time and he said to me afterwards he said well that's not good enough because the way I've been bought up if you don't give me a penalty or punishment I'll do it again no some people are like that and so I was put on the spot I had to find a punishment for him and it just happened that morning I was reading this book by Phillip Hughes called the fatal sure about the early history of the settlers in Sydney Cove and about what happened to any of those convicts if they even it's something slightly wrong that is brutal punishment of the cat of nine tails and so stretchy in my mind so when he asked for a penalty I said well this is Australia I'll give you 50 strokes of the cat now it's amazing just how little people understood about Buddhism in those days this fellow he was wearing white clothes but his face went white er than the clothes he was wearing you know what happens when people get really scared that lips start assembly trembling he really thought I was going to flog him because that's red I told him and said now listen I sentence you to 50 strokes of the cat we have two cats in this monastery find either one of them and stroke it why three a whole 50 strokes of the cat that's what 50 strokes of the cat means in Buddhism in other words learn some compassion learn some forgiveness learn some softness and that was his punishment not a punishment is to create pain but to gain some understandings and wisdom and compassion don't be so hard on yourself and so forth fighting and so wanting to to hurt yourself and that was the the punishment which became just part of putting your honor monastery if you haven't got a cat sometimes the cats are hard to find so that's why we have if you ever go to jhana Grove our meditation center you'll see teddy bear sir so if you can't do 50 strokes of the cat 50 hugs of the teddy bear to stroke now people think that those are ridiculous solutions but actually they work because it gets you to something that the cat doesn't mind being stroked and the cat will not sue you for for for abuse be very careful these days they just pick up the cat and stroking the cat loves it and you laughing you get lost out of that and it also means it gives you a little bit of understanding about why we have this punishment and his guilt and feeling we're not good enough the cats are always accepting so this is where we can learn that about I care about learning the cat can be a symbol of compassion for you and again the cat's can be incredibly wise remember that story of the this cat who was in the nursing home somewhere I remember reading this I can't really remember where was it became very famous they put even a a a little video about it and every time one of the patients in that nursing home was going to die would always go into that patient's room and stay with that patient until it they passed away and the nurses were really freaked out because they'd see the cat go into a room they didn't know this person was next to death and the cat would actually sit on the bed would not leave them in this nursing home until they passed the UT in two or three days there was a much better diagnosis of the illnesses than any doctor could ever do and how the cat could do that nobody could know but people didn't mind that because it's just so happy care so anyway that these cats they don't have amazing sort of powers which is maybe one of the reasons why though they were even worship as like little demigods in Egyptian culture and it's why they can also be a symbol of kindness and compassion they're not that far away from human beings sometimes I have greater wisdom but I'd also use one of those stories of a cat you know Buddhism and cat for some deeper Dharma deeper understanding because already we all use this simile of a cat for meditation because sometimes it's very hard to describe and this is just kindness first of all you know there's still great wisdoms of kindness and now the peace and the stillness and what happens when you get very calm and still they even with little cats because when you do meditates already I told you that when you really relax your body gets still it feels actually quite delightful and when your mind becomes very peaceful no stops thinking it does also create some energy and some happiness and it's just so hard to actually to describe that because it goes against the grain people think that the get some happiness and joy you have to have a strong cup of coffee while your team has to win the the World Cup or you have to fall in love or a get a raise from the boss or whatever it is we know always associated happiness with getting something and the happiness is which we discover in meditation the spiritual life is not in getting things but letting go of things those things but it was so wonderful to give know hey in the last days of KitKat's life it always come up to the dining room and I'd always give it a little bit of milk and my own source and never allow anybody else to do that this is probably an hygiene it would always come out just take a little bit of milk that gave me so much joy to do that there's a little dog down the road he always looked forward to giving it a sausage or something to actually to give something to somebody else is always a great sense of joy you ever noticed that not for what yourself you know you have how disks are traveling tomorrow that's when I was passing through Singapore Airport and I had some my ice shades so I can actually go in an aircraft and just put the shades on and it's can can meditate so you don't see people that's know one of the things which I got them in my bag for tomorrow lysate and earplugs so I can meditate inside a plane nothing else to do except for sometimes people recognize me these days or never forget this time coming back from Kuala Lumpur I just this sitting quietly by myself ready to meditate and then this lady comes up my chamber worries me when people recognize me my time bomb and he said oh I've always been wanting to ask some questions and I told this is from KL Airport I was coming back to Perth and I said I was terribly sorry the gentleman already sitting next to me so you know maybe at another time you know what she said she wrote to the gentleman sitting next to I was in the window satanist Jed was in the arse he said Oh would you mind swapping seats I didn't know what to do you know it's just I know you can't so say no so I was just trying to use my powers no it's just close my eyes it say no no don't say no my powers must have been pretty weak because he said yes and for the whole journey from Kuala Lumpur to Perth about five hours she told me all about her problems I couldn't escape I was in the window-seat but I remember that flight anyway so so anyway I had just passed him since Singapore away somewhere from some place to another place and is this miss lady there you know she was trying to get some some rest she was on the bench you know answer them some seats it was tossing and turning and and just obviously there's very bright and noisy and I just stopped by her saying hey do you want some some uh shades and she looked at me so surprised I see you put them straight on fell asleep and I felt so happy about that that made my whole trip you know better than anything else just you gave something gave people some some happiness and peace so in that little bit of giving is a wonderful thing to be able to do so it's all about sort of giving letting go not accumulating things so I used a story of a cat as a symbol as an understanding what happens in meditation and that was the story of the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass itis with a wonderland one of those two but the story was that Alice it's so well written by this Charles Dodgson who was a mathematician his pen name was Lewis Carroll but he there Alice saw a cat on a tree smiling at her a Cheshire Cat which was both have a smile on its face and the cat kept on disappearing and then suddenly appearing again and Alice said it makes me so giddy to see you you appearing and disappearing so quickly and so the Cheshire Cat me pride okay I will disappear slowly for you and so there was the kinda thing in this story it was just the cat's head I think in my book I did the whole cat so the whole cat first of all the tail disappeared and then the legs disappeared and then the body disappeared leaving only the head and then the ears vanished as the Cheshire Cat vanished slowly and then the the whiskers disappeared and then the eyes disappeared and then the nose disappeared leaving only the lips which was smiling and then even the lips disappeared leaving only the smile which point at is said such curious things I've often seen a cat without a smile but I've never before seen a smile without a cat and I use that simile because this is a smile without a body to feel that smile without a mind or which that smile is pasted on to a smile of happiness without anything experiencing the happiness a disembodied joy and peace or because things vanish slowly first of all you're sitting here and then your body vanishes disappears you're in your mind you can't feel your your legs he can't feel your hand or your your your head it disappears because it relaxes it starts to vanish that's why becomes happy stuff has disappeared just like the end of the working week free and then time vanishes no past no future you let go in this moment nothing to worry about oh this stuff your fellow workers said to you oh don't worry about having to start a new job and a couple of weeks time all of that is vanished so you just here free when things vanish to become really happy but then it gets really deeper because you stop talking to yourself the inner speech vanishes they watching your breath and then the press vanishes he gets curiouser and curiouser as Alice used to say and the more things vanish soon even your mind disappears leaving only a smile very curious you've often seen a person a mind which is not happy a person without a smile but how many times you seen a smile without a person that is deep meditation the Cheshire cats and that sums up Buddhism and meow-meow I said to toy meow meow meow we'll always do things in threes hey buddies so now instead of sorry sorry sorry meow meow meow ok 1 2 3 ok any comments from the floor Buddhists with cats to make it fairer than the dogs ok from Brazil hi got some cats great my cat was always with me while nursing my sick dog this is from Brazil first of all so that this great these talks that go all over the world you know people because you know sometimes you are don't feel like coming today it's cold or I've been working hard but some people they just they're overseas different countries and they just know they feel you guys are so lucky you can actually come in see us and live that's you've got some people from Canada here they just checked in with me earlier just let see me on the YouTube and they just happened to be passing through but anyway from Brazil so great in Brazil you could I check in my cat was always with me while nursing my sick dog who passed away recently since that time my cat is agitated and unsettled what can I do to help my cat let go and get a good rebirth and especially since it has kill birds it's kill birds but it's a nice cat and just a nice time is that forgive the cat for its force just look at the many good things in your cat of course its agitated because you know even its dogs and cats and sometimes they're supposed to fight but sometimes they love each other to bits you seen that looking after one another cuddling up together and because of that if one disappears the other one you know tends to tends to go through grief like everybody else animals go through grief as well this is weird now this is about Paris there was a parrot which was on the corner of Kings we drive in the southwest highway that's where our monastery is because one of the workers there saw it one morning standing on a branch of a tree looking down there's a dead parrot just on the road you know parrots they mate for life and after you finished work you saw that parrot on the tree had not moved next day it hadn't moved it was there for three days he saw it a parrot sitting on the tree looking down at its dead had been hit by a car just looking down for three days until it sort of finished this morning and then went away and was feel grief as well so that cat was out even settled please just give it some extra TLC allow it to let go and no joke just let it listen to these talks notice to note that I told you last week that people showed me the video of their dog listen to my talks I forget what country they were I think of Germany I think they know they had they had it on their computer and the dog was there looking what am i my great followers sometimes it anyway so to get a good rebirth just listen to some talks no you you become a good person a kind person and then the don'tthey the cat will pick it up from you and from Germany cats and dogs are magic beings about touching and they give us instant peace strength love do they know we'll see the time and place between death and rebirth me ghost cats goes to talk dogs already made the one story about the ghost dog and I was in the story about dogs I see there's couple of stories about ghost ox there's the other story about another dog lady over in Rhoda stone should I said that one's done calamander and anyway that she was alone had a dog only companion and he's to go for walks up in the forest with the dog morning and evening and one day she came home from a walk and she'd lost her fingering it's a fingering story and she went back know with the dog trying to find it in the forest you know looking looking hours but no way could find it a little weeks he knew roughly where she lost it she had it on her finger when she left and she knew ring around with the dog where must have been somewhere but could not find it and they soon forgot about the ring because the dog died a few days later and because the dog died she forgot about it but you know she she comes here and she said she swore to me she heard that dog in her house The Barking of the doc was her dog she lived with him for such a long time she knew it was her talk I could never see it you know hear it in a room open the door nothing there and then one day she was by the front door of her house the entrance door and the dog she could hear it barking really loudly the other side of the door there's no couple of inches away so she quickly opened the door no doc but right in the middle of the healthy of the welcome mat her fingering she beat him out that house so often and that was just there after the dog had found it for but fingering was there never heard the dog again the dog had one last thing to do find her fingering for her and then disappeared so read nice so yeah they they can't know and see him just like after people before they go and anyway from Canada after my cat passed away I kept seeing him from the corner of my eye when getting up at night during meditation he came to me physically and I petted him died imagine all of this probably not no imagination you came to see you just one or two last times and then petted him and then off they go that was the other story just not far from here the the dog this taken actually don't mind telling him that's no pawn here once a Thai boxing gym doesn't demonstrations here in anyway his next-door neighbor a builder and he had a dog and the dog died had a cancer so the next day after you know went to the vet was injected died in his arms in the owners arms and so the next day he got off got up to go to work the the Builder and outside the door of the house was his dog don't even put it was dead and the dog went right past him and SATs or whether set in this favorite corners of the house when out to the leaky tap and just had a drink they're from the leaky tap were always used to go then it was like a double storey little town house upstairs to his wife's bedroom Ventus the dog would always go to work with the master you notice that was hangout with the Builder and so went up and would always go and kiss the wife you know Lee now and the wife was this and a half asleep hadn't really woken up yet and so just automatically no forgot the dog had died and just in case the ghost doctor so be really careful what you know you kiss out in the morning before you you really wake up and then the dog came down and then the fellow just he actually had his camera got a few photographs of the dog and so you know he sent the photographs to me it's no it's real and then the dog went to jump in the back of the Ute to go to work and a Buddha said no enough and so the dog looked at even turn around run other way down the stree the Tsubasa saw him go stop one last time to come and visit home so from Canada your cat passed away I kept seeing him from the corner of my eye while getting up a night during meditation came to me physically and I pet him to imagine all of this probably not but then after a while just say it's time to go now can wish you an isolation I love weird stuff too just pushes the boundaries so it just makes life you know way more interesting so if you do lose a cat in the dog which these days is just like human beings and there's a good reason for that just they may come back but then to say okay now take a good rebirth and if if your child always likes lounging around and going to sleep curling up who knows what they were before [Laughter] yeah meow woofle okay so any questions for all here okay so now it's pay respects to the Buddha Dhamma and Sangha oh by the way there is a nice book which I I read this when I was a lay Buddhist called the cat that went to heaven it's in our library now we've got two copies it was the book of that day that monastic temple in London which was taken out the library the most frequently is a very beautiful book the cat that went to heaven in our bookshop here not only to loan not to to take hung some samba de Paco - Paco one tock happy wotty su carto owatta Tom Oh tom anima some soup a key panel baccarat Osaka Sango Sango morning

Channel: Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Views: 24,338

Keywords: Dhamma, Dharma, Ajahn Brahm, Dharma Talk, cats

Id: mAvaDXittW4

Length: 61min 39sec (3699 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 01 2018