Changing our attitudes to who we think we are | Ajahn Brahm | 17 Jul 2015

for those of you who are too hot those are you are too cold please remember Buddhist climate control which is when it's hot keep a cool head don't think about and worry about it and when it's cold keep a warm heart that's called buddhist climbing control hehe so because sometimes you know we have air cones in which make it nice and warm for some people it's too cold for some people it's too hot you can never get exactly what you want in life welcome to the world so sometimes people ask in the maloca can we have personal air conditioners just above you with a remote control there's a lot of times I thought how we can have especially meditation centers high-tech I often thought of these meditation cushions or stools people actually sit on and can't we have them high-tech this is the 21st century where you can have a remote control and if your bottom is a bit too sore you can actually massage it during the meditation or if the leg the right leg is sore knees lifting up you can inflate the right side of the cushion or the left side of the cushion if it's too cold you can actually get a blast of cool air I took cold blast of hot air and if you have too much sleepiness you can press another button and get a cup of coffee from your meditation cushion we can have high-tech cushions but people will still complain so instead of trying to figure out how we can make the world better we learn how to change our attitude to the world and it will you change the attitude as something you can do and then you find it's not the world but it's the way we look at it it causes the problems and for this evenings talk I specifically wanted to focus on how we could make our world better by changing our attitude to who we think we are which is one of the biggest problems of modern people in Buddhism we call this identity view when we start thinking of who we are and after why you say how do you know who you are who told you who you are even yourself you don't know who you are let alone other people judging you and telling you who you are I don't know about my whole life people have been telling me who I am I don't believe a word of it sometimes they criticize are you stupid monk sometimes they praise you all you are so wise I still don't know which one to believe is probably somewhere in the middle actually is not even in the middle just go from one end to the other because I do stupid things sometimes was that does that make me stupid monk I know all the stupid silly things which I do in my life even just recently at our way SEC people were waiting all over the world here in the center for me to give them the five Buddhist precepts when I gave them the five Buddhist precepts I missed out one he and I would I should another five precepts I'm old enough now but you make mistakes everybody does and that makes you human which is wonderful when you make mistakes but sometimes people make a mistake and I identify with being the mistake and I think oh I'm a hopeless human being I made a terrible mistake Story number one which is really important with how you look at other people there were the two children in a supermarket I was telling this a couple of days ago in a Cancer Support Association who came to our monitor they came they've been coming every year for 25 years they've been coming and they still not cured here so actually they are that's why they keep coming back otherwise he'd be dead so the five years I've been coming but I was telling them that two kids in the supermarket and the parallel checkout aisles and almost at the same time one kid dropped a jar of honey splash all over the floor made a big mess and was exactly the same time another kid dropped the carton of milk that weight smash and splat all over the floor made another mess now the mother of the kid who dropped the honey said you stupid kid and a mother of the kid who dropped the milk said that was a stupid thing you did and the difference is immense one kid heard they were stupid the other kid heard they'd done a stupid thing which was true so when you understand that story never ever call your husband stupid he just did a stupid thing that's all like I did a stupid thing because I forgot the one of the precepts but it doesn't make me a stupid monk I hope and if you remember how we talk to one another because how we talk with one another and how we relate to one another people tend to believe what you're told who you are and because of that we have all types of problems now the second story I'm going to work on all these stories as we go along in this talk was an even more important story for me because I was a school teacher for one year and because your school teacher this was in UK you had to do some educational psychology and this particular firm mentioned this particular experiment it was chilling it told me a lot about human psychology not just for kids but for everybody who's sitting here this evening and people listening on the Internet this was the story of the two classes of children at the end of the year they gave the mini an exam so they could stream them for the next year and the thing was in this exam they never published the results there was only the principal and to the psychologist knew exactly what was going on because once they had marked the exam papers then they divided all of those 60 children or so into two classes as equally as possible the child who came top went into the same class as the child who came fifth and six 9th and 10th 13th and 14th 17th and 18th the children who became 2nd and 3rd went in the other class together with the child who came 6th and 7th 10th and 11th and so on they split the classes up evenly and the principal went out of her way to choose teachers for the next year who were equally capable and classrooms with equal facilities everything was as equal as they possibly could make it except for one thing they called one Class A and the other one Class B and it was a chilling experiment because you can imagine what happens half the children tell their parents daddy daddy I got into Class A next year and daddy says that really is mind boggling you haven't done any work all year but nevermind I'm proud of you son have some extra pocket money and these other hard-working girls doing all their homework all the time extra studies I'm in Class B mommy right no more going out belly dancing no more going out to your parties no more watching TVs you're going to have to work harder that's the parents because they assume Class A with the top half and Class B with the bottom half and so did the teachers the teachers actually aimed their lessons at a higher level they expected more from the Class A kids and even a Class A kids themselves thought they were better an assumption Class A is always class better than Class B so 12 months later when they'd repeated the exam kids in Class A did so much better than a B class kids exactly as you would have expected if they were the top half from the year before what had happened is they became Class B kids because they believed the assumptions what Class B means now once I heard that I realized when you call a person stupid they become stupid when you call a person mean angry they believe that they become mean and angry it's amazing just what we're told how much we believe and how much we become and that is one of the biggest problems because most of what we're told is criticism we're always told we're not good enough we're always told we're not wise enough we're not strong enough we're not pretty enough we're not working hard enough we're not sleeping enough even these days we're told we're not happy enough you've been coming to this Buddhist temple for such a long time why are you so miserable please you allow to be miserable in the center you don't have to be happy that's one of the worst things in our modern world with this happiness movement because it's true is one fellow I met in a conference he's the happiness officer of a company and if you're not happy you get the sack when not doesn't go that far but even monks monks you're supposed to come here and be happy that really sucks I'm not allowed to be upset I'm not allowed to be grumpy I'm supposed to be happy because I'm a leading man come by we're all right I demand my right sorry but divided by the right to be grumpy and unhappy sometimes they see what we're doing here is you're not a grumpy monk you're not a happy muck all those things which people expect of you that is what causes the stress and problems in life so if you feel upset be upset if you feel happy be happy if you feel sick be sick this is one of the other problems because I told people recently remember the story it was a long time ago I was really sick never knew why but I went to go see the doctor went into the surgery and Byford and I was sitting there at a surgery waiting for my appointment as you all do you know now you make your appointment for say 10 o'clock you have to wait to the heart past 10:00 or 10:45 he could be dead by that time but anyway I was waiting there I wasn't dying that at that time I was often visiting the local prison no incarnate prison phone and one of the prison officers came into that surgery too and he recognized me I was been teaching meditation and good lifestyle to the prisoners at carnet and he looked at me and he said to me I never expected to see you in a place like this and I felt really guilty it was like I was caught in a pub or a bar or a brothel or a casino or somewhere the monks are not supposed to be sick and even if you eat brown rice and a vegan and do exercise and yoga and meditation you get sick too so I demanded my right to be sick so much so that was the point when I realized why do people always put this guilt on you for being who you are why is it you know this because I've told this many times before in this hall when you go to the doctor how many of you go into the doctor and said doctor there is something wrong with me I've got a cold there's something wrong with me my breathing is not normal never say that if you understand what I'm talking about this evening you'll go into the doctor and say doctor there is something light with me I'm sick again there's nothing wrong with being sick and I did mine sick people's rights I did it more carefully at that time in other words why stigmatize these things because we're always into criticising putting people down putting ourselves down until we get this identity view of not being good enough and that is our identity view which causes so many problems for people in this world and I come across it so often you know when people come and talk about their problems we're all coming down to the fact that you weren't acknowledged as a as a human being that you thought there was something wrong with you from the earliest time of your life mothers were always saying you're not pretty enough you're not working hard enough you're not cleaning up your room you're not doing this you're not doing that and honestly the amount of criticism kids get growing up it's all well-meaning yeah you want them to to grow and become better human beings we're doing all in the wrong way and because they feel a lot of criticism and I've seen their I was on a bus some years ago no I just I was doing our research I was on a school bus I was a bus which was collecting school kids sitting down going from one place to another I'm not quite sure what I was up to but listening to how teenage kids talk to each other but there was two girls in the seat in front of me and one there must be the best friends and while we say your breasts aren't big enough the other one says but look at your nose is too big and they spent that and there's been the whole bus journey picking fought with each other and these were the best friends I don't know whether enemies said about each other and have you remember that from schoolyard always being picked on and all your force being pointed out to you and after a while if you're called a class B kid long enough what do you think to become Class B kid you build up your identity just from what other people tell you this is saying with so many other things in your life you know you start a relationship it doesn't work so you feel a failure in relationships you try a job and you get sacked and you feel there's something wrong with you I don't know how many people keep on feeling there's something wrong with them just the same way that people think there's something wrong with them when they're sick there's nothing wrong with you as I like to tell people in Singapore half of your children I tell them in Singapore are going to be below average intelligence now of course that's obvious that's just simple mess half have to be below average but not my kids no no not like it's other people's kids yes but not my kids my kids are above average intelligence half of your husband's are going to be below average I say yes I jump Rob Lester by these come on this is the world of course that has to happen but there's nothing wrong with that this is actually where when we stay there's something wrong with things this is where we get into huge amounts of problems and troubles instead of saying it's wrong with life we learn instead just how to understand life this is what life actually is people make mistakes they do the wrong things but that doesn't make them a wrong person they're not class B kids a normal class B husband you're not a class B wife another Class B mother you're not a class B person but unfortunately we make these identities which is one of the things why in Buddhism we always say in meditation were who are you or rather who do you take yourself to be and so sometimes I ask be personal ask the person do this recently because they were feeling a bit depressed about themselves and Allison please write all the good things about yourself said no no if there's none you can see they have this identity view they're a bad person they're depressed they're always late or they do wrong things I always criticize people and after a while we have this view of who we think we are I did a lovely experiment after when I was a monk I was spending three months in the rains retreat with another Western monk and at the end of the retreat we sat down and we told each other what we thought of each other now honestly two monks and I was listening to his opinion of who he thought I was and it was totally different to anything I ever expected to see myself I heard myself described in another person's eyes that was not what I thought of myself and I did the same to him and he was gobsmacked too sometimes now what we think we are is so far from the truth but those assumptions of who we think we are get so locked in to us that they stop has had being happy and succeeding in life another case this was from this time I was a school teacher I love doing experiments some of them were maybe not fair but they were worth it because there was a kid in my maths class and the teachers told me he's hopeless at maths he came bottom the year before and there's about three or four classes in this school now is his math teacher for one year so I decided to find out whether it was because he can't do maths or there was some other reason so for 12 months about nine months of the school year after every lesson I'd ask him did you understand that give him extra attention praise Him when he got the thing right go to his desk no doing the exercises and give him a bit of a hand really just give him special attention I say was unfair because I never gave that attention to any other child in the class just this one boy because I wanted to see whether there was a case that a person just cannot do maths or because they believe they can't do it and of course it was a second case because at the end of the year that boy came top I moved him from bottom to top just by giving him a belief and challenged his eye his identity view as someone who just can't do maths I proved it and it's the same with each one of you what do you think you can't do in life why who told you that why do you believe that there becomes your identity view who you think you are and a lot of things is what you can't do what you can't achieve which is why two months Ananta when they say they're not enlightened I say yet you can be why not it's only a yet question keep on going there's nothing to stop you except your lack of belief and confidence in what you can actually achieve and do it's incredible that if I can somehow get in their heads and tell them yes you can do it it's amazing they do it say with each one of you sometimes even just being happy or even being healthy no with the Cancer Support Group why do we think that I've got cancer I'm going to die just that belief is the biggest danger more than anything else and we think I am that cancer you're not the cancer it's just a thing which is coming into your body for a short time and it's only in part of your body what about the rest of your body most of your body hasn't got cancer it's just no in the head there on the heart or somewhere else but it's not all over yet what about focusing about the other part of the body and say I'm a being zone your tiny parts got cancer changing an attitude like that stops his identity believe that I am sick you're not only a part of your body only a small part of your body is sick the rest is pretty healthy but when you have the lad interview identity my body is sick the whole lot of course the whole body then becomes sick become a Class B kid so this is why sometimes a psychology of an identity view you can make use of that to do whatever you want to do and you never get fixed into being one thing or another I love my life as a Buddhist monk because sometimes I get treated as a Buddhist monk sometimes I do not for example when I come through Perth Airport sometimes they look at my passport and say so why have you been traveling so much with Southeast Asia can we look through your bags they think I'm a drug smuggler and that actually happened once I loved hitting the story I was coming back from Sri Lanka there's one of the early trips to Sri Lanka I don't know what's in Sri Lanka but they got so many scents and curries and you know sometimes you spill things on your robe so when I came through Perth Airport and was queuing up to the passport control and they were taking the sniffer dogs up the lines of passengers up and down up and down they go and when they came to me the dogs stopped and honestly buried its nose in my robe and was wagging its tail ferociously and the hand I tried to put it away wouldn't go Paul Paul Paul and when it was pulled away the person in front of me looked around and took a step further away from me now we're not traveling with this guy and while behind also whenever I was looking at me and then it takes him that you've been through path of what takes forever on these queues and lines and that gave them time to do a second check they came up again and the dog stopped again at me raddest how much now everyone was really looking at me now and of course as soon as you got through the passport control come over here sir and the customs officer he was saying fortunately you know I don't have suitcases just have my bag actually where is it I Q I travel this is all I travel with so it's very easy have a look inside it just takes five minutes had a look inside and he said what's under your robe the nothing every Easter flesh nothin too low because the Navy got zips and stuff it's so hard to actually turn to take off things I didn't have to do take off and just open up and show it's really good fun being a monkey could just be a bit a bit crazy because you dress crazy so people it's sort of expect it so anyway afterwards he said well well why did the dog stop at you and I just started to explain about loving kindness and compassion and this curse as I said get out of here get out it so like sometimes you a suspected drug runner and and other times I I'm I go to Sri Lanka now because I'm treated like royalty when you get this Srilanka now because the last time I was in Sri Lanka I didn't even need to go through passport control that's someone waiting for me at the gates they come this way so and they took me to the secret lift in the Colombo Airport I know where there is now go straight down to the VIP rooms and there you are you are in this beautiful sofas just relaxing when this person comes up a cup of tea for you so may I have your passport and so while you're drinking the tea they do all that sort of stuff I would not be wonderful with you go to Perth Airport let just sit down madam they give you a cup of tea and they do all the passport stuff for you and what was this finish they give the passport back and said your car is waiting outside sir now that's a sort of service we want in Perth Airport to attract more businesses so which is the real I jump on the drug runner or the celebrity I don't know but it's wonderful when you can play around and be anybody and what's that other tile that's other famous story I'm just going on to old stories because I just like telling them even though you've heard them before that time when I was busy building a bodhinyana monastery and I had like bills only about a year ago because I was fixing up the roof no available moody toe on the the teacher's cottage at jhana Grove and I was doing it myself up on the roof unfortunately somebody took a photo and put it on the blog and people say that jump rum you're too old to go on roofs if you fell off you've been losing a teacher and also be careful you're so fat the roof might give in so I'm not allowed to go on the roof anymore but I enjoy doing a bit of building a bit of mixing concrete and messing around with the other monks it's a boy thing so I was this was a time when I was was helping with the concrete work at Bodeen Jana monitor your donations they go a long way donations to the nuns the monks you know we actually do a lot of work ourselves as you come along and help out so we know we get in there we don't just sit there and just no say wise things we actually go and do wise things as well like mixing concrete anyway good fun good exercise as well and if it ever makes concrete it splashes all over you and that's part of the fun of it you know getting dirt down and dirty so I had all these beers of concrete all over me looked a real mess and I was walking back you know to take a shower when this very well-dressed Sri Lankan woman high-class Wellington woman probably very wealthy now we were passing and she said I've come here to see the great monk ajahn Brahm do you know where he is and I told us it up because I was very smart very thinking very quickly I said if you go down to the the darkness salad the dining hall he prodded me down there in about 15 minutes I'm very good she said so I quickly know had a shower got changed went down there and taught her you know she didn't recognise me honestly because after talking to her for about 15 minutes or half an hour she said oh that's so inspiring you're really good monk I'm so happy to meet you and your monastery is wonderful but if you don't mommy say on the way here I met one of your monks and he was very badly dressed you should not allow that it knows me and I said quite honestly I said oh really I will talk to that monk later madam that wasn't lying I often thought to myself but I like that because they never recognized me I could be two people without people recognizing and that is a wonderful thing to be which one was a real me neither of them because when you don't identify with anything you're not a Sikh monk you're not a healthy monk you know even a monk human being that's one our nicest things when people come to the temple he starts talking to the dance these nuns were not born in Mars they are human beings and it's wonderful you come and talk to them and tell them jokes and enjoy their company that's wonderful when you realize that these people are just human beings despite he's one of you just because we're big monk does not mean that was somehow special and have to go travelling in helicopters just to go 70 kilometers I read the news this morning for those of overseas that was one of our politicians you know sometimes that no people want to be treated like royalty and that's one of the terrible things in religion you know when the religious people get so separated from reality but you know they do really weird and strange things so it's nice actually to have your friends here and people who actually can bring you down to earth because sometimes people tell me that I do sometimes when I was away recently I went to Central Java just to give one talk in the town called mega Liang and this is not a big city in Java but five thousand people turned up and I was treated like a rock star even Lady Gaga wouldn't get so many people in that city and so sometimes people said they've asked me many times that you know you're getting famous that Emperor are you afraid that that Fame will make you sort of really proud and arrogance and change you I said no because you got these nuns and monks they'll put me down if everyone get any airs or graces and then I always manage to make sure I do the hard work as well and and sometimes you see me and sometimes people hate this when I open doors for you I come in here and I open the door for you you go in there first so now I can you've got to go in there first sometimes you like actually just taking away this identity view of being somebody special because you're a human being that's what's special about you each one of you is special though it is saying this evening about there were some rules only exceptional nuns they say can actually come during the rains retreat at da Messiah and I mentioned that all the nuns are exceptional every one of you is exceptional specialists no one else like you in the whole world thank goodness that's beautiful to see this and when you actually start to see that you start to see the identity view which people have why do you want to be special why do you want to stand out why do you even want to be different and it's wonderful just to say that that whole judging of being better worse or the same that is what the Buddha said other three conceits which is one of the biggest problems for human beings wanted to be better wanted to be sometimes thinking we're worse and sometimes we're just all the same none of them are true we just don't judge ourselves which means instead of actually saying we were bad person we were good person that be honest sometimes you could sometimes you bet we change we make mistakes sometimes but we always learn and grow little by little and when we try and judge who we are please don't judge from the past it doesn't matter what you did in the past that's not who you are that's who you were and if we always think that we are what we were is no way of any growth with stuck in the past and too many of us now we've done silly stupid things hair traumatic experiences in the past had bad times why can't we move on that wasn't you that was another person another being a long time ago so why can't we just let it go sometimes people say no you have to be keep bringing it up to relive it before you can let it go and I say no every part of the past you can let go of if you have the guts the courage the feeling of safety that you can do and also permission incredible thing about what to have permission to say it is allowable to let go with so much creatures of our cultural rules somebody sent me this interesting email the other day and it was some tribe which is no been totally untainted by other cultures that in this tribe when anybody makes a mistake or does anything wrong or bad by steals or hit somebody or he stands in the center of this circle and all the members of the tribe stand around him he's done something bad but will they punish him no for two or three days he has to stand in the middle and they all tell him wonderful things about himself what a great person he is for three days when he's done something wrong I thought wow that's whatever that tribe is that's incredibly wise because someone's done something bad and you punish them you're just reinforcing this idea this identity of you they're a bad person and instead of getting that that they already know that they've done something bad and to stop that cancer of identity of you of being a bad person just in establishing itself in that person the whole tribe stands and praises him for three days what a wonderful method that is to stop this identity view of you being a bad person of failure a mistake the sort of a hopeless case they praise instead what a wonderful thing that would be the bombing Bishop who took that chopper flight if everybody else in Parliament stood around in a circle and said what a wonderful woman she was you may laugh at that but what that does the whole reason why people do bad things is taken away people do bad things they make mistakes a lot of times it's because they just been demeaned they think they're hopeless I think they don't deserve to do good things and if we'd only get a bit more crazed when we were young a little bit more love care acceptance embracing you're making mistake he made a mistake we still love you and care for you only get more of that there'll be the fire less people doing bad things in the world if you don't believe me look at yourself what sort of upbringing have you got your history I'm not talking about when you're a kid but up to the present moment if you do bad things why would you do that stuff a lot of times it is because you don't think you deserve to be good don't deserve to be a kind person a generous person there's always this sense oh that's not who I am you've been told you a class-b kid and that's why we act like crappy kids but this particular tribe you did a Class B act but they all reminded you know you're a Class A person your class a person your class a person for three days and of course you can see what happens very unlikely ever did that bad thing again very unlikely so when we have these identity views of who we think we are I ask you who do you think you are what are your strengths and weaknesses in life who told you that do you believe that if you believe that then you're attached you're stuck there's no way out when you doubt that you doubt all that you've been told about who you are and all those experiences you have when you doubt that in me you could be anything yeah you failed does it make you a failure you drop them milk you done a stupid thing but it doesn't make you a stupid person which means that you learn you grow you learn how to not drop the milk again but you're not a stupid person that is how we grow and learn where we have the identity view it's amazing how many people I've seen get stuck there the sick person there the angry person there the grieving person there the addict there the drunkard that's who they become that's what they expected themselves and they keep on repeating the same self-destructive behavior this doesn't work this is a shame we have there there the soldier so they have to be violent there the University professor so they have to know it all how many people just become Noah tall's because that's who they think they are sometimes when I came back from Thailand I thought I wasn't knowing or I thought I knew everything about Buddhism and this is an experience I was just sharing this with the monk earlier on with a gem chakra he was the senior monk at the time and I thought he was really really wise and he gave a talk somewhere and after the talk was finished it was a pretty good talk this professor of Buddhism came up and said that's all very well but that's got nothing to do with Buddhism it totally sort of took him down and I've had that many times in in Australia you cannot pretend in a country like this because people will criticize you if you say something wrong they'll tell you thank you for doing that stops me being a know-it-all so I can grow as well and take advice which is really important and the other example I remember which just came to my mind of there one of our ex caretakers here a long time ago said he became a Buddhist because an experience he had listening to a talk in Melbourne many many years ago there was a Tibetan Buddhist monk was to give a talk in the public library and so he went along just for interest not really a Buddhist yet and well this Tibetan monk just before he got up to give the talk one of these fundamental Christian people stood up and started to harangue the monk say he was evil a messenger from the devil and Jesus was as Jesus was the only way and Buddhist being quite gentle said ok you said yes tough now now please sit down and be quiet want to listen to the monk but that just made the Christian fundamentalist even more speaking louder and more aggressively and it took 45 50 minutes to get this guy to leave the auditorium and that's all the time they had for the talk slow everyone had to go home and the mark never said anything but this young man said that was the most inspiring thing he'd ever seen simply because when this monk was being criticized and put down and scolded and said was evil and part of the devil's crew or whatever the monk was just sitting there peacefully and calm even though he's being scolded he realized that's not what he was and this is how you can understand just how to behave if you're scolding to sit there being peaceful quietly then that scolding that anger doesn't hit you if you believe that you are wrong or what other people say or take that criticism on board that's when you get hurt often say if people call you a dog is that Jan char saying if people call you a dog what should you do look at your bottom to see if you have a tail you don't believe that if you haven't got a tail you're not a dog end of problem so when people scold you don't believe what people say about you the other story is if people call you an idiot this is an obvious one people call you an idiot and what do most people do they start a thing he called me an idiot he should not call me an idiot he's got no right to call me an idiot and that's when you realize he's just called you an idiot three more times which means he was right you are an idiot why can't you just let it go when people sort of start to to criticize you why do you take it on board and think that's who you are a lot of times it's because when people don't know themselves not it they don't understand who they are they always keep believing what other people say about them that is why that you're always vulnerable to what people say which is mostly criticism one of the things which we train ourselves in especially meditation is to be aware of who we are I may be aware of who we are we realize it's nothing much they're just a human being just make mistakes you do good things you have tears in you however after just like everybody else and as well when you realize who you are then what other people say is like water off the duck's back so this is one of the wonderful things about meditation I'm not telling you who you are you're finding out you're looking inside this body or mind understanding what is this person sitting listening to me and you realize there's nothing wrong with you it's nothing right with you it's just you that's all so which means what other people say doesn't really matter which means that you can be at peace with yourself in other words you accept yourself other words you love yourself when if you love yourself and be a peaceful with yourself then you can be at peace with all beings but until you're at peace with yourself and I understand you can be anything and your peace with anything to be at peace when you make mistakes you'll be at peace when you're tired you'll be at peace when you've got lots of energy you never tie yourself down to one thing your changing just like the seasons and everything is okay however you are right now and that means without an identity view you have this beautiful sense of freedom not tired to the past but just being evolving changing just like all other beings thank you very good so here we go for some more questions and comments and complaints the three C's he what we got today yes hello I'd like what here yes God well from the album I'd like to first acknowledge the original custodians of this land as the Buddhist precepts state compassion to all beings and there are billions of beings being constantly in prison tortured having their children kidnapped murdered and things far worse and we many of us can imagine all for profit which comes from us lissome from us who listen to Dharma talks then wouldn't it greatly reduced suffering by gently informing and encouraging people to avoid funding these industries like meat egg and dairy therefore I just like to request that that becomes a part of every Dhamma talk from this point on to reduce suffering greatly thank you ok very good point noted very good okay very good questions here from Spain I think we don't have the same mental capacity if someone has not interviewed that they are mentally limited could that be true and it's not a judgement I've noticed that many people who have supposed to be having some mental deficiency or other physical impediment when one obvious example is Steven Hawkings has got a physical impediment but has got incredible mind and there are other people who seem to have no maybe diagnosed as autistic who still can have incredible gifts which other people don't have so when you say mental capacity sometimes I was not going to tell this story because I said it very often I told her very recently it was the time when I went to the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore and on that sort of talk I mentioned similar things which I've mentioned this evening and afterwards this fellow came up he wanted me to bless his ward I asked what he does in the Institute of Mental Health in Singapore and he was the professor of schizophrenia and I asked him how he taught how he treated schizophrenia and that's when he said I do not treat schizophrenia as a professor of schizophrenia in Singapore he said I treat the other part of the patient the other part which is not schizophrenic and that really inspired me so much because he understood what I could see he's a person schizophrenic are they a person and they got much more than that label they told they are and I asked him afterwards what is the result of your treatment he said much better than normal treatments because he was seeing there was a not sort of some mental incapacity sometimes it's a label which is put on and the more you encourage that label the more you identify with that label then will you become a schizophrenic and by treating the other part of the patient which was not schizophrenic he was taking away that labeling of identity view it was get incredible good results in it so sometimes when your kid is our diagnosis say OCD what happens you treat them like an OCD person you expect OCD behavior sometimes it encourages that behavior obsessive compulsive disorder for how about not labeling and focusing on the other it's a person who has exhibited OCD symptoms but doesn't made them an OCD person not Class B because otherwise a person becomes a Class B person so could that be true it's not a judgment sometimes the judgment makes the truth the judgment makes a person so sometimes it's interesting to know that are they mentally incapacitated obviously I've got to be very careful here because I don't want people to actually to stop taking the medications that there is a problem there so take those medications but also see the other part of you as well which doesn't need those but keep on taking in the meantime and lastly from the US I identify myself as a Buddhist but I have trouble practicing Buddhism in a Western society any suggestions to help it depends what type of Western society in many Western society Buddhism is very cool and it depends like how you practice that Buddhism and I think you must have all seen because I don't know how many people have sent me this email that the Wimbledon men's champion Novak Djokovic he was going to the Thai temple in London every morning which is just around the corner from the the tennis course in Wimbledon and he was going there every morning know to meditate and just relax before his matches and that's why he won sort of the Wimbledon men's tennis championships and it's also why the Australian players didn't do that well because they never came to the Buddhist temple so I don't know why I have trouble practicing Buddhism in a Western society because it usually fits in pretty well now if you wanted those ceremonies and stuff and chanting and banging drums down the street obviously that doesn't go down very well but it's like keeping precepts being a kind person being compassionate meditating then that goes down very well in most Western societies so I don't know really what the the problem is there it is from the United States maybe you're in a part of the United States which is still quite backwards when it comes to religious freedoms and tolerance for difference but you know some parts of the United States are just they still not really totally recovered from racism so you know it takes a while for them to open their their minds to different views of religion and the truth about the nature of the world but the many parts which are very open and hopefully that you're living in one those parts of the US which is very open and where people can practice Buddhism for example obviously in California Buddhism is very very popular even the governor of California Jerry Brown he's a Buddhist there's many other people are Buddhists in the United States so it depends actually where you are from the United States in some places there still again needs to sort of come into the real world and move forward but in some parts it's still a little bit sort of behind the times hopefully you're living in a place which is ahead of the game okay so let's see any questions from the floor again okay so we can wind up now so we usually pay respects to the Buddha Dharma Sangha and then we can all go and take a rest

Channel: Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Views: 152,303

Rating: 4.8318005 out of 5

Keywords: Ajahn Brahm (Person), ego, self, attitude, dharma, Buddhism, forgiveness, imperfection, dhamma

Id: u1ldT6MBEP8

Length: 55min 36sec (3336 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 18 2015

Reddit Comments

[u/bileam]

I recently came across this guy, and imo he's a wonderful teacher. He simply puts his views (based on Buddhism) into stories and metaphors and presents them in a wonderfully humorous way.

Have a great day <3