"F" Is For Forgiveness | Ajahn Brahm | 13-05-2011

so welcome everybody for this evening's talk as Dennis was mentioning I was just came back from another trip overseas I was here last Friday Saturday left they go to Singapore and Kuala Lumpur and to give some talks came back Thursday morning but just one interesting thing I'm going to ramble a bit this evening but so the main topic of the talk is dealing with the complexities of life and especially those in the past it's a topic we shall I thought I've dealt with a few times but it keeps on coming back in both here and in Singapore and Malaysia when people were asking us how Buddhism connects you deal with the difficulties which each one of us have faced and some of those of oh traumatic difficulties have I wanted the first of all that you know of an interesting development that what I was in Singapore I went to give the final talk at a Buddhist film festival in many places in the world is our way sacked I'm now celebrating the birth enlightenment and final passing away of the Buddha so this ceremonies and festivals and events all over the world so one over to Singapore to give a talk at the Buddhist Film Festival as usual I'll make it up as I go along and talking about something which I remembered as a long time ago when I first became a monk about 36 37 years ago in Thailand someone showed me a copy of one of the tiny newspapers and even though I couldn't understand Thai that well I still as I do these days I like reading the comics so I saw a comic there and the comic was of a character called super monk nice 36 37 years ago so super monk was like a Superman or one of these superheroes and Superman could levitate of course being a super monk could fly through the air but also had these great powers to stop trains crashing and stop aircrafts or plunging into the ground he could save all these people from the bad guys but unlike modern times when Superman or these other superheroes they usually either killed the bad guy send him into prison forever in Superman comic he were given the five Buddhist precepts and they'd become very good people afterwards even they rejoin the Sangha become monks there's a much nicer ending and not violence because sometimes even these these superheroes they used too much violence instead of using violence using wisdom and compassion to solve the problems of the world and what a wonderful idea that was and so anyway I mentioned that I see the newspapers you know in the magazines they got all these superheroes I used to read about in the comics as a kid Batman and Green Lantern and the flash and all these other people they always Batman there was made movies of these people now and so the one movie which I thought they should have after the Buddhist Film Fest what a real Buddhist movie would be super Munk now you know I throw these ideas out and sometimes you think I'm just no hour wasting time but when you go to these meetings every now and again you meet someone interesting and at the end of my talk somebody stood up and they put their hand off the question said my ex our husband works for Steven Spielberg it DreamWorks I'm gonna email him tonight this suggestion so if you see in a one or two years time in the movies super Munk done by DreamWorks with the consultant as Adam Braun you know where the cave I thought what a wonderful thing because all these superheroes they end up punishing the bad guys and this world of when you do something wrong you punish somebody well when you do something wrong you have to do some sort of penance I'm sure that you all know that keeps a psychologist or psychiatrist and the therapists in business but now there is another way of dealing with that and just wait another way of dealing with the terrorists and oh and these are the bad guys if we punish them put them in jail does that ever stop the problem and I must admit I was very proud of our president Dennis Shepard who after the assassination or the death of Osama bin Laden he wrote to our local paper here saying that maybe that wasn't the best thing to do and of course when I go overseas people ask that question to me they said you know that I mean that is quite a limb for a couple of days ago and what did you think about the the killing of Osama now you're a Buddhist monk and as far as I'm concerned all that type of killing it's not really going to do much good what is really saying to us is that if there's someone who we really afraid of if there's someone who's really a problem just kill them put them out of our misery and they say yes well I mean that's one terrorist one person who can no longer kill but what is a message we are given to everybody we're given to the the message to everybody that violence is a way to solve problems and of course that violence will actually be in domestic violence in marriages my husband in many ways he's just like Osama bin Laden the way he treats me or other people and we all know there is so much violence in our society and why do we have fires because we think the other person deserves it they're just getting their just desserts and because of that we just perpetuate a terrible thing in our society of revenge and again one of the reasons I became a Buddhist as a young man who was very concerned about the world in which I would spend the rest of my years I just hated violence is maybe because I was a child whose parents had been to the Second World War you know my own mother had a bomb had landed in the house next to where she was a young girl the people know these were terrorist houses this is you maybe see here in Perth in like in the East Perth development houses which just had one wall to divide them and so sometimes you could hear the neighbors when they were arguing and you could hear them when they turned on a radio because there was only one four equal one whoops he's gone no one brick wall dividing them and because of that that you know during the Second World War you know when a bomb from one of the aircraft of the enemy fell on the house next door next doorman really mean next door so the house next door they the neighbors got blown to smithereens my mother is very lucky they she just got her arms flash with glass and of course the house was unlivable but she survived and of course this was just the nearest experience which she had but all the people from that violence they carried the scars maybe not the visible scars like my mother had but the emotional scars and maybe because of that you know as a young man I thought there must be another way to violence and punishments and revenge and that's why when you saw the Buddha's teachings you know of non-violence and forgiveness you realize that this was another possibility another way and I just embraced that way and it's used it not just in intonation of international relations because I don't want to really focus on that now even in movies no super monk who doesn't go around killing people and punishing people but just now faces up stops a danger and starts to teach them there's another way of dealing with these things in life and in particular how we also use that and this is a focus of this evenings talk you know on you know the violence done to you and done by you in your past because each one of us comes with our history and sometimes that history is not the most pleasant and sometimes you could have been abused you could have been sexually abused physically abused in your youth and what we gonna do about that and because Buddhism is one of the few powers which does not celebrate revenge and makes a huge distinction between the ideas of justice and revenge but I thought that that was a beautiful path and I practiced that path I've taught that path and it's healed so many people so the complexities of your past what are you going to do with them in our society we think we have to bring that up deal with it get justice punish the perpetrators if we don't they'll do it again to somebody else and to me that never made any sense and to me that it was much better to follow what I heard in the Buddhist teachings simple teachings which I actually very well-known things like he hurt me he abused me he cheated me hatred never ceases in a person who harbors such thoughts a straight from the Dhammapada though he hurt me or she abused me or they cheated me if you Harbor those thoughts and keep them the hatred to pain never never ends in you so straight away from now the Buddha said no stop those thoughts let them go it surpassed it finished and it was amazing thing for me to realize that you could just take all that pain of the past and you could just let it go you did not have to carry it around with you and I teach and many conferences were many psychologists attend and I've taught that here and that is a very powerful statement which is cutting edge state of the art which is not just bringing up the past remembering it going through it again and again and again and again but signing some way to actually to cut it all off in one go that's what the Buddha was suggesting and the very suggestion of that show just the 2600 years ago when the Buddha became enlightened according to our tradition and it just to show that at that time there's no other person who under or any religion or anybody who understood the mind that thoroughly to even suggest that that's possible I think it's it's very fair enough to say that psychology there began with Buddhism the understanding the nature of the an effective ways of dealing with the pain and the problems and the troubles of the past it started with that and it inspired me but how the heck can you do it is it possible and of course when I give these talks I love personal anecdotes naturally to bring these these ideas down to earth because you know sometimes when you give a talking could be theoretical and people say oh that's all very good it sounds inspiring but look we have to live in a real world how the heck does this work and of course personal stories I had a very good childhood so I can't use my own personal story but I love to use the story of my own father and I've told a story before but it's a powerful story that my father was born in Liverpool and it must have been just after the first world war so he grew up in what they called the Depression years and he call this no the GFC the global financial crisis I mean that's nothing compared to what happened in those early days when people really were starving but people didn't have enough to eat and when he go to work and you're lucky if you kept to work that day and doing those Depression years I mean my father used to talk about them I mean my grandfather used to talk about them just there not knowing and there's no sort of Social Security payments from the government you know there's no safety net at all some people died you know no place to live starvation your kids you know which you know you had when good times he didn't have any money left to look after them in those bad times it was really really tough and my father who grew up in those years used to tell me about his father my paternal grandfather who did have work he was a plumber you'll always find some work somewhere was a plumber but when he did get paid life was just so depressing there was no real future no real hope you know if he had a sexual relationship with my mature my paternal grandmother it was this another kid another person to feed in the house another burden no contraception and those and so that his life was going to work and then just go into the pub afterwards and coming back drunk almost every night and what my father used to say that as soon as he heard his father you know his father my paternal grandfather coming back he would hide try to get out of the way because my father would take off his leather belt and just whip any kid who came in the way and then visit abuse on his mother who could not escape from him a really gross violent domestic abuse a drunken man with no hope yes my father describing his upbringing and it was why it took me many years to get that out of my dad because you know as a son he was want to say what was your mother and father like now what did you do I was interested in my roots and that's why it took him many years I should to tell me how he grew up I remember him telling me that he said that many tides when he was on the end of that belt getting a whipping for nothing he did he didn't deserve any punishment he was just the drunken father with no hope he said he made a determination of resolution he said to me that every time that belt dug into his flesh he remembered that one day I might have kids if ever I have children I will never ever treat them that way and of course many years later he survived many years later he met my mother and I was one of the two children he had and he is one of the most softest of men even if I did misbehave he just could not hit me and I didn't know why at the time but now of course I understand why because of that resolution he knew how much it hurt not just physically I mean emotionally and he realized that's not the way to bring up a kid and I think you law degree I turned out pretty well and that's the sort of father I had it wasn't gonna visit violence on me my brother as well now he's a couple years older them a really good man he's retired now and because that he had abuse and very gross abuse it wasn't that he could take that abuse and visit it on his kids he never went past his generation why because he looked at that abuse he acknowledged it you know what it actually was and when he realized how much it hurt he had enough wisdom and compassion to say no I will never do that on anybody else sometimes when we are abused when we are hurt can't we use that same idea that how much it hurts how much pain it causes us how much sense of a lack of trust that someone I loved who is hurting me so much how we learn from that and instead of visiting justice on somebody else they hurt me I have to hurt somebody else but actually say I am never gonna do the same to anybody else I know what it feels like I know how it hurts I'm never gonna do that to anybody else what is happening there is a standard thing which I understood from Buddhism we acknowledge the pain we forgive him we don't want to punish back but we learn from it we learn we grow we become much much better people as a result and my brother mother my father did understand love and he did show that love to me he did teach me how to love even though he came from such a terrible background what it told to me is true he did practice that Buddha's teaching he hurt me he abused me he cheated me talking about his own father but my hatred the ill-will will not get solved it won't get healed if I keep thinking about that so he let that go so he never needed to visit violence upon me it is this way that we deal with the pain of our past of course the first thing is the acknowledgement we don't hide it we don't deny things honesty truth is the first part of any real spiritual path you can't have a religion which is based on just fantasies and dreams and things which aren't true at all again that's one of the other things which I've value with Buddhism truth is valued more than being right if you understand what I mean there because sometimes I am the leader I am the boss I know more than anybody else I am right and sometimes authority figures who feel they're right stand in a way of truth truth has nothing to do with being right truth is actually learning to look deeper and as soon as someone thinks they're right it means you don't look any deeper so truth is always working progress being right is dogma where you stop any more investigation any more questioning any more learning once you're right we finished with our investigation but truth is something which we will never actually reach in the sense of being right who has always looked deeper find more understand more that's what truth is all about when you think you're right that's what we get Dogma when truth is always we can look a little bit deeper find out a bit more learn some more so because of that that I always realized that we do acknowledge we do investigate we do find out what's happening we don't hide anything denial has nothing to do with Buddhism so we acknowledge we're honest now the fourth precept of audist is not just not telling lies to other people it's not telling lies to yourself being honest to who you are what you are best you know and going deeper so once we have that acknowledgment because that's always a first step and you know I've been one of the talks which I had to give because people choose the talks for me and I prefer it when you ask me to give a talk I prefer it when somebody even chooses a topic because know otherwise number one I'm not challenged don't just choose the old talks and number two it you don't connect with people when you talk about what you I want to talk about what you want to talk about and in Malaysia they asked me to give a talk on a subject which I never taught on before because I didn't know what the heck they meant on moody bar and will he bought it I landed in Kuala Lumpur and I was gonna give it a three hour session that afternoon on moody bar so the first thing I had to do is what the heck is booty bar and it is a malay word for harmony and bringing together the different communities in malaysia because there's four big communities of malaysia there's and malaysia Chinese the Indians and the rest which is mostly the indigenous people you know in a few sort of Westerners and and other sort of communities there but they're the four communities and if you ever watch politics or in Malaysia's a few people who grew up in Malaysia or have relations in Malaysia you know that they know here in our Buddhist society you know there's a great tension between those four communities which flares up every now and then they ask me that how can you actually how can you actually bridge those two four communities have a bit more harmony and of course one of the things I was saying first of all be honest why you dislike those people so I got them to write down on the piece of paper the reasons they don't like first of all the Malays then the Indians then the Chinese which most of them wear while they don't like themselves in other words be honest to your force and your weaknesses and then of course you know the old technique now right the things you like about those other communities what you respect about the Malays where you respect about the Indians what you respect about you know one of the things I really respect about the Indians I in Malaysia my goodness I make a delicious cup of tea and their Indian tea no with no really strong glass of condensed milk I love that stuff so anyway they wrote down all the things they liked about it so what they were doing they're being honest but they're also being balanced and of course it's that balance to another community which is how we can deal with our pasts by being balanced to our past because my father yeah he was beaten by my grandfather he was also fed water and protected by him at times there was another side to the story and seeing the other side of the story not just the pain of the past but the pleasant part of the past is one of the most important important means of actually letting it go he hurt me he abused me he cheated me ill will anger that guilt that pain that trauma will never be let go of if you Harbor such thoughts so how did you let go of that you're truthful to that you're honest to that but your honesty also sees the other side of the story he was kind to me he cared for me he looked after me as well as he beat me then it's possible to let go it's possible to let go because we realize it's worth letting go is some people have often asked how on earth you forgive someone say like Osama bin Martin if you were one of the people who lost your closest relation no in the Twin Towers or wherever else was destroyed on September 11 suppose that was your mother or your kid and they died in that and they were just going to work they didn't do anything they're not involved in politics they're not sort of Muslim Christian or whatever they're just an ordinary person that went to war one morning and they were killed because of this damn Osama bin Laden and sometimes that you know you can understand why people just would celebrate there's such a death simply because they're not seeing the big picture they wanted revenge they've never forgiven I think you know what happened such people even the death of say Osama bin Laden still is not ended yet they want to kill everybody have you ever noticed that justice in the form of revenge never ends a matter it never settles the matter forever it's even in the heart of the the person who really suffered if that was say you know your child who got killed and they found the killer and even if they executed him your pay hasn't ended yet he's still there the idea of justice has been done now and get on with my life no you can't because that does not work the other way the other way of forgiveness people have often asked me how on earth do you forgive when someone has hurt you so badly well they've destroyed your life where they stopped everything the other way is being honest really much more honest than you have ever done before and see the good side in that character as well see the nice side in a person like Osama unfortunately you never read about that in newspapers a bit it would be wonderful it'd be a very challenging piece too as she's for someone to actually to write all the wonderful beautiful things which Osama bin Laden did in his life the kindness the love which he gave to his kids or to whoever and I'm sure that sir as it is in everybody there's a tough thing to do because we've stereotyped we've judged without having the information we've already decided that that person is bad they've got no redeeming qualities at all and that type of judgment means forgiveness is not possible for that forgiveness and now moving on we got to see something beautiful wonderful good something we can respect in our enemy and once that step is made and that is the hardest step the rest is easy he realized he wasn't such a bad guy he did some terrible things Claire to be terrible things but it's another part of him which you haven't even thought could exist once you see that then you can let go why don't you see the other part in the person who's hurt you cheated you abused you you see another part in them then you can figure you know when you forgive it doesn't take away the pain of the past it just frees you from the TEC pain of the past in other words you can learn from it you can grow from it you can understand why these things happen why there was a man who beat my father for no reason why there was a man who thought it was worthwhile blowing up people for some sort of good cause why it was that people cheated you why it was that your partner was unfaithful to you why it was that somebody let you why it was that people accuse you of something you did not do and destroyed your reputation why did they do that once you understand the reason why I know I know then forgiveness can happen once a forgiveness happens then there could be freedom from the past and it's not just forgiving people of hurt you is also forgiving yourself because both of these go together people are angry at others are guilty about themselves but I've seen that so often little kids who come to you and say they're worthless they're bad right inside these are the suicidal kids in our community just talking with Dennis about them earlier why and after kids think like that and again is because of our society one of the reasons which which once justice was once revenge yes other people are bad they need to be destroyed so if you look at yourself and think your better than I need to be destroyed and that type of problem creates a huge amount of psychological pain and I think each one of you may have actually sometimes felt that that there's something wrong with you you're a bad person why because all these things have happened to you I must be bad I must be really terrible why did this thing happen to me and of course that anger that depression how it should focus on yourself is called guilt and for all of those psychological impasses that to me is the most stupid feeling guilty about something you've done why do you do that number one it doesn't number one it doesn't make any sense I'm a rationalist I was a scientist because sometimes you feel guilty it means you think what did i do why did I do it I should have done it another way sometimes you don't know if you could have done it another way you don't know what might have happened if you did something else just the past is so so old and you don't know what might have happened so it probably might have been a good thing which you did I don't know I'm gonna bring up this old story again I told us about six weeks ago you know this is a good story for those who haven't heard it before and this is one of those stories which you can use in your daily life to talk to other people it solves a lot of problems it was a story of the king you went hunting you know this is a good dad who knows story a golden oldie but is so powerful King when hunting and when he was hunting he scratched his finger and when he scratched his finger there was a doctor in his entourage and so he called a doctor over doctor my fingers been scratched can you please have a look at it and the doctor looked at it and just put a bandaid on it and the King said is it gonna be okay it's my finger and she would ask her doctor is it gonna be okay and the doctor said good bad who knows that's pretty wise isn't it you know it didn't impress the King that much so when he got back to the palace after enjoying himself on the hunt by that time the finger was red it was infected so the king called the doctor over again and said doctor look at my finger it's got worse and so the doctor took the band-aid off put some ointment on I put a proper bandage and I cleaned it out put a bandage on and of course the the King asked again is it gonna be okay is it okay and the doctor you said good bad who knows so the key was a bit perturbed but he's very busy so he just let the stupid doctor go away but a couple of days later I mean his finger was so bad you know that the doctor had to amputate it that's how infected it was and of course you know if that happened to you you'd sue the doctor you know you get a lawyer and take them to court or whatever and get some compensation in those days it wasn't suing you just put that doctor in prison in the bottom of the palace and he put the doctor in prison himself say you stupid doctor law what's happened to my finger all this good bad who knows business and so what do you think about that there may be in jail I know where the doctor who applied to their King being in jail good bad who knows that crazy doctor you can run there so that they've left the doctor in jail and of course in a couple of weeks later when his finger was healed he went back to his favorite pastime hunting in the forest and this time he was a bit heedless he was following some sort of animal and got separated from the rest of his entourage and got lost in the forest lost in the forest wandering around he actually got captured by this forest people these indigenous people and they were so totally startled beyond his control they didn't know he was a king they just captured him they happened to be one of their holy days so they took him to the priests to be sacrificed so their God a human sacrifice so they tied him up and the priest was doing all the mumbo-jumbo and the dancing up and down and stuff and then he got out the sacrificial knife it was about to snow slit the Kings well there's only the last moment the very last moment that the priests realized the king was missing a finger and he said stop everybody if we make a sacrifice to our God we have to sacrifice somebody perfect he's not perfect enough he's missing one finger set him free so because he lost one finger and he wasn't perfect enough to be sacrificed to a god they set him free and he realized that doctor what a wise man he was I lost a finger I thought it was bad but as he was good because if I had all my ten fingers I'd be dead by now so soon as he as soon as he found his way back to the prison he went in the bathroom as he went straight to the prison straight to the doctor's cell and opened the lock himself and said you're free I'm so sorry what I did know you were right and he told him the story and I said it was good I lost my finger otherwise I wouldn't be here today I'd be dead sacrificed but the doctor was remorseful he felt so guilty about what he did to that doctor so he asked for apology and said I'm terribly sorry please forgive me as a bad thing I did throw you into child like that at which point the doctor said what do you mean a bad thing that you did it was good that I was in jail and I'll tell you why if you handler throw me in jail I would have been there on that hunt I would have been captured too and I've got my ten fingers so that's a wonderful story - I've told before here but isn't it true good bad who knows so those things which happen to you in the past are those things which you did which you feel so guilty about or feel angry about if they happen to you why do you do that do you think what's a bad thing you did if you're wise and you understood that story doesn't matter what you did good bad who knows what would have happened if you taken another path what would have happened if someone had not cheated on you what would have happened if my girlfriend sort of hadn't liked another boy if those are very bad if she's my girlfriend but she told me she was interested another boy was that bad I thought it was bad at the time but now I know it was good I escaped so closely well that's really a close call you know I could have been no on my third marriage with kids and mortgages and a headache but now I'm a monk I'm free so if you ever find that girl again I sell thank you so much for dumping me so all the stuff which you get angry about you think that someone's hurt you abused you cheated you well a wonderful way of looking at it good bad or nice if it wasn't for that pain maybe I wouldn't be Who I am today I would have learned so much I wouldn't have grown so much wouldn't had the opportunity to understand so deeply about life you know because wise people they don't go through life just know with a silver spoon in their mouth and having a wonderful time you know that wisdom is actually born just in the pain of life in the difficulties in the troubles that's where we become wise and it's what is the most wonderful thing to actually to learn just how to forgive and how to love unconditionally so all the pain you've had in the past all the difficulties all the trauma this is actually what I've said the fertilizer from which such things as compassion or real love arise the Buddha actually gave this simile he was just like these beautiful white lotuses which in Buddhism was the purest most beautiful flower you know in India and always said they grow in the mud in the bottom of the river or the pond in the real dirty mud and the most stinking smelly that mud is the more beautiful fragrant salutis you know some roses don't make you they get stuck in the mud just like many people get stuck in the past and the pain and they don't know how to use that as the fertilizer they grow up they grow through the murky water after the top and then through into the sunlight and that's a beautiful simile 26 centuries ago a Buddhist of how you can be in the dirt in the ship and really grow out of it and become some beautiful White Lotus fragrant as a search so was it my coarser brilliant and beautiful and they're all born in the in the mud of the pain of the past so this is actually how we see some value in what happened to us when we see some value that's purpose it answers that great question which so many people ask when something terrible bad happens to you why me why did this happen why did I lose my kid why did he commit suicide why did I lose my job why did my husband do this to me and that question why is a great cause of pain and suffering to people but now you know the answer why did the mobile phones go off now you know the answer because that's what they do that's what they're meant to do and you can all turn them off how many people in the room the laws of probability it was that person so turn this time next week will be your turn so do you get embarrassed when you make a mistake like that don't get embarrassed it is what happens in life so you don't feel guilty and beat yourself up which a lot of people do when they make a mistake they feel so embarrassed beat themselves up and just get you further into guilt but instead that was meant to be so thank you for doing that today as I say thank you to my girlfriend for dumping me thank you for their boss for cheating on you because if you really really well see you would never have enough pain or disappointment or problems actually to come to a place like this most of you came here no because we're having a good time but because you were desperate so whoever it was it made her so desperate traumatized you and made you come here go back and say thank you so much has that for you too impervious to tell me entirely listen they said the only time you came to a temple in Thailand is when you're having a lot of problems and suffering and they said they were so afraid of going to the temple because they thought the biggest suffering which people have in life is relationships so these women whenever they went to a temple in Thailand they said they were afraid because their friends would say she's going to the temple there must be some problem in their life that must mean her husband that must mean he's sleeping with somebody else you know how gossip goes on and on or not so they wouldn't like going to the temple because the room when the village would be that their husband is misbehaving but but some of you come here because of that and what a wonderful thing that was so instead of getting angry at the past we actually honest to it we embrace it but we don't take the pain of the past with us it's the pain part which we let go off we've done it yes it happened the pain the anger the wanted to seek justice or whatever seek revenge so wanting to punish that is what we let go of the warning to punish shows Armour the one is a punish whoever else caused you pain and problems the one is to have prisons which are just for revenge let's punish those people who have done such bad things in our world and I'm fortunate whenever I read that in the newspapers no this idea people there outside the prisons say yes justice has been done they've got twenty thirty years or they should have got more they saying well they're going to be alive when they come out in ten years time but me you know my daughter my son who was killed they'll never be here they're gone this unfair come on why do we live in a society which is so cool which seeks for punishment that does not solve anything there's a document which I've got in my heart I keep many of these and it was relating it was a study which was done it was a very beautiful and informative study of the punitive nature of some of our societies and the much more psychologically advanced responses of other societies and it was concerning they use as an example a horrendous thing which happened in the north of England a few snows many years ago I still remember one of the perpetrators Jamie Bolger was a little bit 6 or 7 year old kid who was abducted by know also children in a shopping centre in the north of England tortured and killed know by two kids within about nine or ten years of age or something and of course that that became huge media fodder in UK the two kids were sentenced to jail eventually that no they were young so that when they came so maturity the sentence was over they had to be released the media was say these people should never be released what they've done is terrible and there was so much anger and revenge especially from their the family of the little kid who was killed but in contrast things about the same year maybe within 18 months there was a very similar act which happened in Norway around the town of Trondheim and there there was a couple of other kids who taken a young girl into the snow fields and brutally her and it was so similar the actual the circumstances of the act no two elderly kids taking a younger kid and killing them but the response was so different and I must say the Norwegian response was much closer to being Buddhist the next day after they caught the perpetrators of those killers the next day both of those killers were in school with psychologists with social workers in attendance and the family of the murdered girl had no thought of revenge they realized that those two kids who did this there were kids basically that their neural system was not responsible in the same way an adult was basically they did not have the same sense of what they were doing as if you know I was an adult mature 21 year old a 25 year old would so even the family of the murdered girl did not really want to have those two murderers put in jail straightaway they did not want their eye for an eye tooth for a tooth and those two kids they needed huge amounts of psychological support and many years later when the parents of Jamie Borghi or whoever it was was still in a lot of pain the Paris of this girl they were just going on with their life totally at peace free from the pain of that past when it's punitive anger guilt when we refuse to let it go because we want justice there will never be any freedom and that case study was so beautiful because those two cases happened about the same time they were similar enough but the different response showed very clearly what we who should really be doing with the pain of our past if you want to punish if you feel guilty if you are angry if you want to hurt that and hurt you while you want to hurt yourself because of something you did that complexity of your past that pain of the past will mean you will never ever be free to be no possibility for you no Buddha said that 25 said 26 centuries ago my goodness sake other religions they are punitive God punishes know the the the evil ones you know we don't even have a word called evil in Buddhism stupidity yes but not evil you see the difference there stupidity can be healed evil is you know needs to be be burnt at the stake that's what we used to do but stupidity stupidity counselling compassion learning growth that's how we overcome stupidity rehabilitation so that gives a totally different sort of explanation to what happens and with that different explanation to what happens a totally different way forward out of that pain of the past and of course many of you have actually come here because you had to pain in the past and you're forgiven you're loved you're cared for and you encouraged to do the same for yourself and for other people that means that pain of the past can be let go off that's how it's let go that's how we remove that doesn't matter what you've done in the past or what's happened to you acknowledge you forgive it no punishment and we learn we grow and that means this as I was meditating just now and I thought this is a torture I was going to give them it's like in that past is sometimes a tension or tightness just like in your body sometimes but when you start meditating there's a tension the tightness and I taught you how to relax the body it will by little being aware and being kind awareness compassion to even parts of the body and awareness and compassion to the present moment you're in this person will be kind to and it relaxed he's get this beautiful sense of freedom and ease and today I've told you to do the same thing to your past be aware of it for you attention in that past be compassionate to a kind to it and you find like the emotional feeling of tightness and tension which sometimes you can feel in your body as an ache or a pain in the emotional body that tightness that tension that stress emotional stress located in the past is relieved and ease this big ball of ache and pain and hurt from your past expands you are relaxing I can't think of a better word relaxing the past as you relax the body as you relax into this moment and when you relax you feel so at ease look at me my robe has fallen off again that's how relaxed I am I could well as week old I just I went to give a talk over in quarry I think it's one of the boat clubs there though or yacht clubs and a little restaurant nearness is one of these talks I love going to talks to places I've never been before and it's one of the interesting things about being among you get all over the place and this was a group of executives you know executives in Perth who met her once a month in this know your club had dinner and wine and all sorts of other stuff that never gave me anything good job because I can't eat it or drink it but it was after the talk I gave Ono and Buddhism and sort of attitudes we have I was a member of this executive came up after with me and said yeah I was listening to what you said it's very interesting and important but what I really noticed is your robes and just how loose they went how they keep falling off and he said she said I take that as a symbol of Buddhism because she said she was brought up in a Catholic convent where the nuns there were just so tight nothing ever fell off and he said it was just so strict and so tight there was no freedom there there's no relaxation no ease if something went wrong like something fell off you can't do that that's wrong but she saw me in this very loose robe with things falling off that's Buddhism and I easy comfortable and if things fall off we learn from that we accept that we just put it up again finish what's the problem but if you feel guilty I'll be the monk for 36 years and I still can't keep my robe on when I give a talk you hopeless hopeless hopeless now of course that's what the nurses a row for you have you made mistakes have you done things wrong have you feel guilty about them have you hidden them and just feel terrible I did this terrible thing why did this happen to me that's not being a Buddhist keep it loose keep it free let things go wrong learn from them fix them up go forward such a simple beautiful teaching and that simple a beautiful teaching is just what the Buddha said so many years ago I wanted to sort of quote a couple of suitors because sometimes people get the impression that a Jaguar makes these things up himself got nothing to do with what the Buddha taught but actually it does this is actually basically what the Buddha taught but I don't actually on a Friday night I don't talk in Sanskrit or party I talk in English and just put those teachings into modern context is something called the ballet karate suitors in imagine minik' this is showing I know what I'm talking about just no cases any doubters there it just says that just let go of the past that went off into the future be kind to the present this is 2600 years ago as well I was talking this in what in ancient India telling people to let go of that past how you let that go with kindness in the Vinaya the teachings which he gave to the monks as when we make mistakes when we break the rules what we're supposed to do admit your mistake acknowledge it forgive a no punishment learn from it so you don't do it again I'll do it less often that is actually how we were trained straight from the world of the Buddha 26 centuries ago that's impressive because it works increases beautiful set of a community of people who can make mistakes we're not afraid to make mistakes because we don't have punishment are you afraid to make mistakes and to admit those mistakes are you afraid if your robe fell off if you know what I mean and of course when you're afraid to make the mistakes there's so much tension and tightness in you you make more mistakes but when you relax you have this beautiful sense of body relaxing the mind relax in the past with actually even relaxing in the future are you worried about the future what might happen to you about the biopsy result coming in on Monday about you know the financial or the credit card statement coming in next week and oh my god I know I spend too much what am I gonna do are you tight with the future have you got this this sense of tension lying in front of you somewhere if you have you know you're in a big trouble open out be kind compassionate you know there's always something you can do if you really get financially ruined look if you're a man you can become a monk if you are 90 can be if you wouldn't have become a nun we will always feed you and later on now after many years in the monastery because you're financially ruined he couldn't pay your bills you'll look back and said oh that day when I was financially ruined now when the bank the bank took over my house and I was totally without a place to stay our job or clothes to wear and I John Baum took me into the monastery and I became a monk at the time I thought it was bad but now I know it was good good bad who does that's a way to look at your future how many times have you really had a bad news or something really bad happened to you and at that time you see this is the end of the world this is terrible how am I gonna get out of this and all those really difficult moments of your life which you have faced and you thought there's no way out and now you're here you know back up on those times it's not true at the time you thought it was bad until well that is a problem it's just the way you judge things only see the negative side of life so now whatever happens to you good bad who knows well great philosophy of life so it means you can never get angry you can never get afraid you never get sort of worried about the past whatever happened to you good bad who knows whatever it's gonna happen to you tomorrow good bad who knows whatever happened to you now good bad who knows what a beautiful attitude that is because that opens up the positive the possibility every time you are in the it's just the beautiful Lotus growing it's only a matter of time before it breaks through the surface sees the warm Sun and the Lotus gives so much joy to itself and others that's all that means good bad who knows opening up the opportunity for lotuses to grow in your life from the of your disappointments and pain that's how we deal with the complexities life is very simple not trying to solve the past because the past can't be solved it just they're even not trying to understand

Channel: Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Views: 56,926

Rating: 4.8269548 out of 5

Keywords: Dhamma, Brahmamvaso, Difficulties, Complexities, Forgiveness, Punishment, buddhism, Buddha Dhamma, Dharma talk, Ajahn Brahm, Justice

Id: pMWLk4NR3RI

Length: 56min 16sec (3376 seconds)

Published: Sat May 14 2011