When you come inside this hall, on your way in you notice the big Buddha statue standing outside. That statute has its hand raised like this, the hand which is raised with the
open palm is called in Buddhist art "the attitude of fearlessness," the Abhaya Mudra. It's one of the great signs on Buddha statues. In order that this teaching, these explanations,
this understanding will bring people to a state of fearlessness. This is our goal, to be one who can walk
this life without fear. I think you realize that there is so much
fear which is part of our society, and it creates so much suffering and so many unnecessary
problems in our life, and it's very important to understand what fear is,
and why we are addicted to fear. We actually encourage it in our lives, and because we encourage it, we invite it in,
we live much of our life with fear which impinges on our good health, shortens
our lives and creates too many calamities when really they shouldn't
have occurred. So today I'm talking about fear and what it is, and why it is, and
why the heck can't we let go of it. You notice that in many societies that fear
is indoctrinated into us from the time we're young, by our parents who say that
if you stay up late at night some bad person will come
and get you. From the fear of monsters under the bed, from the fear of
going blind if you do certain things, for all these other stupid fears
which are inside of you. Even to the point that some people
say if you meditate the demons are gonna enter your mind, so be afraid. I even
remember, I think 25 years ago when I first came to Perth, we had a
small Buddhist center in North Perth in Magnolia Street, for those of
you who remember those days. In that center we had a Buddha statue which was
given by the person who is now the Sangharaja of Thailand when he visited Perth
about 26 years ago. Very beautiful Buddha statue which is actually now the statue
in the room to my left. That was the only statue we had. I remember one time
this man came, he was a Christian, he was the head cult buster in Western
Australia. He was checking us out to see whether we were a cult who indoctrinated
people and sort of took over their minds. Well, we do indoctrinate people, but we
actually free their minds rather than take them over. When he came in
he was met by our caretaker who was a very wonderful girl, and so Australian
and so charming he thought, "This can't be a cult," until he went into the room
and saw the big Buddha statue. He ran out in fear, he was
terrified just because it's a simple Buddha statue. Now you can go in
the room next door and see that Buddha statue, and all the time which I've seen
that, it has never moved, it's never bitten, it's never done anything, it's just sat
there. I don't know why people are afraid of these things, but you
see that that fear can sometimes be indoctrinated into you. Too often
human beings have been conditioned by fear, controlled by fear, and they have no
freedom. And even I say that sometimes people say that if you meditate
something bad will happen to you. I've been teaching meditation for more than 25
years since I came here, even 30, in fact the first time I ever taught
meditation, when I was a school teacher, that would have been almost 40 years
ago ... 36, 37, something about that time, Actually I was teaching maths,
I should know how many years ago it was... But, I had to take the school assembly,
there were 650 children, high school, and I decided to take the school assembly
for one week, and teach 650 children how to meditate. The first lesson was
just meditation on the breath, and those 650 children, when I said "sit up straight,"
all the children sat up straight. When I said "close your eyes," they all closed their
eyes. When I said "let go of the past and future, watch the present
moment and watch your breath," 650 children just were watching their breath.
After 5 minutes they spontaneously clapped. The teachers afterwards asked me,
"What would you have done if one child hadn't cooperated," and I broke out into a
sweat. Because all it needed is one child to start giggling or laughing and it would've
broken the spell, but it was wonderful to be able to do that, because I was fearless,
I could actually teach something like that, and it worked. In all those years
since I've taught meditation, nothing bad has ever happened, only good things.
So why is it that people teach fear and they stop people having an open mind, a
free decision to discover for themselves and learn from themselves. You can see
that too often fear is used as a means of control. So please fight
against such controlling fears. But there's also the fears which we have
inside of us, and first to understand those inner fears, to understand just how
counterproductive they are, it seems to be whatever we are afraid of in life, we
actually bring about, we make it happen. If you are afraid of dogs, you tend
to meet them, and they bark and chase you. You all know that the animals can know
how you feel, and if they sense fear then they will react accordingly. I remember a
monk like me had to live in the jungles of Thailand for so many years, and they
were jungles, there's many many wild animals around, and many of those animals
would regard you as lunch. But because you weren't afraid of them, they never
harmed you at all, they were your friends, you would tread on snakes, big ones, they'd climb
up your back. I remember once in the hot season in Thailand, you'd lay down with
just your lower robe on, with a bare chest, and the tarantulas would fall on
you, and they'd walk over your bare chest, they were so tickly. [laughs] Now if I was afraid of those animals
then I would tense up and they would become afraid, and they would bite you,
and you'd suffer a lot of problems. But because you weren't afraid, that's
why you can live at peace and harmony with things, that's just one example of
many, of how when we're afraid it causes a psychological negativity which
actually brings a lot of harm upon ourselves and on others. It was
wonderful living in a society where fear was not encouraged, when fear was not
used as a means of controlling people, when fear was recognized for what it is,
something which is a disease of the mind and should be lessened to the point
where the fear disappears. I know that sometimes people say that you should be
afraid of snakes, you should be afraid of say forest fires in Australia, you should
be afraid of the traffic. No, fear is the wrong word. You should respect the power
of the truck, the venom of the snake, and the danger of a fire, respect it, but
don't be afraid. 'Cause the fear is another emotion which creates a
negativity in the mind which usually respond in a complete, I won't say
irrational way, I say an unwise way, an unskilful way, which doesn't produce the
effects which it supposed to produce. But why is it that people have
fear? It is conditioned into us from an early age. We have fear of punishment, and
that's one thing which you should never have, even in Buddhism especially, no
matter what you do in this place, you will not be punished. You will not be
excommunicated, even though sometimes I think maybe you should be but, no,
I will not do that on principle. The classic story to show how fear of
punishment is not part of our agenda, not part of the way we do things, and to show
why it's not part of our agenda, and how instead we deal with problems, is a story
many years ago of one of the anagarikas one of the people in white
who's trained to be a monk at Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine. When you
become a monk you have to train for a minimum of two years beforehand, one year
wearing white keeping eight precepts, the next year in brown keeping ten precepts,
and afterwards after two years maybe you can ordained as a full monk. There was one
young man, an Australian man who was starting his training as an anagarika,
eight precepts. One of those precepts is you're not allowed to eat any solid food
from noon until the dawn the following day, you can't eat in the afternoon or
night time. So I was the abbot, one afternoon this new anagarika,
a young man, came up to me and said, "I have something to confess, I've done a
terrible crime. I know you're gonna probably throw me out of the monastery
and not let me be a monk, because one afternoon I was hungry, I went into the
kitchen with no one seeing me and made myself a sandwich." [laughter] And to him it was like some capital
offense. And so what did I do? I told him, I said, "It doesn't matter,
thank you for letting me know, now maybe eat some more food at
lunchtime, you know before lunch when we have our meal, eat some more so you won't
be hungry in the afternoon. If you are hungry you can have some cup of
tea with some sugar, some fruit juice or some chocolate, so you don't
have to eat in the afternoon. So it was a mistake, you admit it, have some
strategies in place so it doesn't happen again. Okay, you can go now." This young
man looked at me and said, "I'm sorry, that's not good enough." [laughter]
He said, "If you don't punish me I will do it again." [laughter]
"I need a penance." Because he knew himself, he spent all his life only being trained
by punishment. He said, "If you let me go like that I'm sure one day
I will do it again." So I had to think very quickly of a solution to that
problem. As it was, I'd been reading a book, a very well-known Australian
book called "Fatal Shore" by Robert Hughes, which was telling the early history of
Australia. I got to that point about the convicts who were here in Australia,
and the harsh punishments meted out to them. So I looked at that young man in
white clothes with a bald head and I said, "If you want a punishment I will
give you a traditional Australian penance... "50 strokes of the cat." This
young man, his face went whiter than the clothes he was wearing. 'Cause he
didn't know too much about Buddhism and he thought, "Oh, my god, Ajahn Brahm
is gonna whip me, he's gonna lash me." [laughs] But then I told him what "50 strokes of the
cat" means in a Buddhist monastery. We have three cats in our monastery, choose
whichever one you want and stroke it 50 times, "there cat, there pussy ... three, four."
Learn some compassion and kindness 'cause that's the
only thing which will overcome your need for punishment and pain. It's because
you don't know kindness and compassion that you think that fear is the only way to
train you. I said, "We don't do fear, we do compassion and kindness." That's a far
greater teaching tool. Be kind to yourself allow mistakes to happen, don't
be afraid of them, and you'll find you'll make less mistakes. How many of you,
maybe when you are having a driving test, or maybe when you're having some
other exam or some interview, anything which is tense, when you get afraid, you
stuff up, which is why that some children who are doing their
examinations, their TEE or whatever they're doing ... I think I'm a bit too late
for this, they've already done it. But nevertheless I say, what is an
examination anyway? It's just a game, just a test. Just like you may be playing a
game of tennis, what's the difference between a game of tennis and an
examination in science? It's just a competition, you against the others. But
why is it when you're playing tennis or you're playing footy or whatever, you
don't tense up, because it's a game, you're enjoying it. So why not look at
examinations in the same way, as fun, as a game. It's only because our parents say
you'd better pass or else, it's the fear which comes in to these things we have
to do in life, which makes us do under our potential. We don't reach our potential
when we're afraid, we tense up and we don't achieve what we could achieve.
So first of all, give it a game, make it fun. Number two, look at the
outcomes, be wise. If it is an examination, you've only got two
options, you pass or you fail. If you pass, wonderful...you know your parents say what
a wonderful person you are, you've passed, your friends say congratulations, fine.
But if you fail, fine, at last you don't have to do any more
examinations, 'cause if you do pass you always have another examination to do next year.
In fact a lot of life is doing examinations until you actually fail one,
then you can give up and have a good time. [laughs] That's only a bit of a joke, but remember it doesn't matter, all this idea of success and failure, so what?
If you pass the exam, fine. If you fail the exam you can still live a peaceful, happy
life. How many of you have failed examinations? Maybe at the time you thought
that was the end of the world, but really you've lived a very happy and wonderful
life. How many times have you worried yourself silly about an interview, and
you didn't get the job, and you're so happy you didn't afterwards? How many
times was I afraid when I saw a nice girl at a party and went to talk to her,
and because I was afraid I never got her, although I was so fortunate 'cause
otherwise I've never made it to be a monk. [laughter]
But all the time you're so afraid, and why? Sometimes the fear is counterproductive,
so these days when you face difficult situations, I look at the alternatives,
the options, the two or three or four things which might happen, and I realized
no matter what the outcome is it's not worth the fear. I can always deal with it
no matter what happens. You go flying throughout the world, and I think you've
heard me say before, I'm not afraid of flying. Remember if you do have a
terrorist on board your flights and the plane gets blown up at 30,000 feet, the
three advantages of dying at 30,000 feet. Number one is instant cremation, so you
don't have to bother with getting a funeral director and making all these
arrangements, Karrakatta, Fremantle or Pinnaroo, it's done on a spot for you, very
efficient. Number two... cremations, funeral services cost a lot of money. This one is
not just done for free, your family actually get paid for your cremation, the
insurance payout. So you actually, your family make money out of your death,
which is a good thing. And third and most important when dying at 30,000
feet, you're so close to heaven it's easy to get up there. [laughter]
So you're not afraid of dying at 30,000 feet.
Sometimes when I came back from Japan, the hosts there they gave all these
gifts and they packed them all up so I didn't actually know what was inside of
them. When I got to customs they said "What's inside these things?" I said, "I don't
know." I was honest and there could be drugs inside, but am I afraid
in case somebody puts drugs inside of my packages? Of course I'm not
afraid. 'Cause we all know what can happen, I go to jail and in jail I get three meals a
day instead of just one and a half in the monastery. [laughter] You don't have to go do all this hard
work, you can sit there, you can even watch TV in jail, you don't have any TVs in the
monasteries. So am I afraid of this? No, "Bring it on," as George Bush say. [laughter]
So what if it's in Singapore and you get executed? Well, you're gonna die anyway, and I never
really liked the idea of an old people's home. So I can die in the prime of my
life, what a wonderful time to die, because sometimes people they have go to
this place, I think Dignitas in Switzerland, to get euthanized,
because nowadays you can't do it in Australia, you used to able to do it in Northern
Territory. But this is actually done for you for free. So you gonna die anyway, so
why are people so afraid? Because when you don't really look at the options, the
outcomes, and realize it doesn't matter what the outcome is, I can always deal with
this. There's no big problem, really. How many people are afraid of the so-called
economic crisis? It's not an economic crisis. It happens all the time,
shares go up, shares go down. It's always going to be that way, it always has been
that way, but sometimes we don't look at history. So why are you really afraid?
You know it's not gonna go that far down. It never will, never has, and I
promise you that. It just goes down a way, then it bounces up again. You know why?
Because people don't want it to go down too far. Never underestimate the power of
human desires. It's incredible when everybody's
thinking in the same way, that does have an effect on the world.
So it only goes down at the moment, and you all know why, 'cause people are too afraid. When we
are afraid we panic, and when we panic, we make what we're afraid of
happen. I can't help but mention that story which is in "Opening the Door of
Your Heart," about the TV story which I saw as a young man called "Kung Fu." I
think with David Carradine, I think, if my memory is good. I remember this
particular scene which was all about the power of fear. In this
particular scene, they took this young monk, this novice monk, he's called
"Grasshopper," and he had a master, this blind very very wise Buddhist monk who
was teaching him all sorts of interesting things about life. But this
was real Buddhism, it was not theory, it was actually life, practice. So in this one
episode he took little Grasshopper inside a room, a secret room which was
normally kept locked and no novice was allowed to go in. And as he opened the door
and took little Grasshopper in, and obviously the camera followed, in this
little movie-TV series. And when the lights became easy to see, the
master asked Grasshopper, because the master was blind, he said "Grasshopper, what can
you see, what can you see?" And Grasshopper, and I looking at the TV,
Grasshopper said, "A swimming pool, it's like a pool." And the
master said, "Be very careful, but go to the edge, and what you see in the bottom?"
Grasshopper very carefully went to the edge of the pool and he said, "I
see bones, lots of bones in the pool, master." "Exactly" said the master, "Those are
human bones, because that isn't water, that is acid, strong concentrated acid, be
careful." Of course Grasshopper stood back, because this is dangerous. "What else do
you see," said the master. "I see a plank," said Grasshopper, "stretching from one side
of the pool to the other side." "Exactly, said the master, "This is going to be a
test for you, as all novices have to pass this test, you have to walk on that plank
across the pool of strong concentrated acid, and I don't want you to fall in and
add your bones to the bones of all the other young novices who fell in." Little
Grasshopper looked very scared, and I must admit, watching the TV,
I got scared too. [laughter] "But," said the master "come outside." And
outside in the monastery courtyard there was another plank exactly the same size
and length, only just put on two bricks. "Practice," said the master to Grasshopper,
"you have 7 days, no other duties, just practice walking on this plank, because
in 7 days' time you'll have to walk over the acid," strong concentrated novice-eating
acid. So he practiced for 7 days, no problem at all, after half
a day, easy to balance. But after 7 days it was a real thing, and the master took
Grasshopper into the room once again, and the master ordered Grasshopper, "Stand on
the edge of the plank." And you could see the novice's legs start to wobble out of
terror, 'cause this was not just on a plank over hard concrete in the
courtyard, this was over acid and one slip, one little error and he would fall
in and die a horrible death. "Walk," said the master. And Grasshopper turned around,
and you could read the look on Grasshopper's face, "Don't, please master,
don't let me walk." "Walk," said the master, so Grasshopper started walking,
unsteadily at first but as he got closer to the middle it was even more unsteady
as his legs appeared to start to give way. You could see him shake, and then
wobble and then sway, and it really looked like he was about to fall in,
and that's when it stopped for the commercial breaks. [laughter]
I hated those commercial breaks. So you had to watch stupid
advertisements for soap powder and toothpaste before you could
go back and find out what really happened to Grasshopper. So after an
interminable wait on these stupid advertisements, you were back in that
terrifying room. But usually just 3 or 4 seconds behind where they left
off, you can start to see Grasshopper, he wasn't swaying yet, he was just wobbling.
As he got closer to the middle of the pool, he wobbled and swayed even more and it
looked like he was gonna fall in, you know what happened? He fell in, he fell
into the pool of acid. And what did the compassionate master do? He just laughed
as Grasshopper splashed around, and the master laughed even more, and Grasshopper
realized he wasn't being burned. Master said, "Grasshopper, you found
out now, it's only water, it wasn't acid, it was just water, and as for
the bones, we just threw them down there for special
effects, to make you scared. Why did you fall in, little Grasshopper? Fear pushed
you in, fear made you fall, only fear." That was a wonderful lesson which I took
on board, seeing that how when we are afraid we actually make what we are
afraid of, we make it happen. Fear pushes us in, too often it's fear makes
us lose our money on a stock market, it's fear gives us the cancers. Doctors have told
me, I've seen this in reports, that people have had cancers for years and
they've just been quite benign, but as soon as you get diagnosed with a
cancer it flares up. Why? Because of fear. A lot of time it's fear that kills you,
not the disease. I remember reading that in a great
story by Edgar Allan Poe, "The Mask of the Red Death," only a short story. I
remember it was a story about the plagues which hit
Europe during the Middle Ages, which devastated 20%, 30%, 40% of the population of
cities. And then this little scene from the play... there were the demons, the
devils who were supposed to be spreading this plague, and they met together in a
clearing in the forest, and one asked the other, "You've been to Paris, how many people
did you kill there?" "1,000." "You've been to London, how many you kill there?" "2,000."
"You've been to some other city, Frankfurt, how many killed there?" "I only killed
about 50, but fear killed 20,000." I remember that saying and how true that
is, how fear kills more people than diseases themselves. So we all know the
danger of fear and how it creates problems for us, however we make
decisions, we make the wrong decisions out of fear. Why do we do that? It's not
just conditioning because we can break conditioning if we want to, one of the
things as a monk I know by meditating, is that we like to be afraid. There's a
pleasure of fear, the fun of having something to worry about. You know this
because you can go to amusement parks with the "death drop," with these
rides which send you hurtling down to imminent doom, and at the last minute it stops.
You get people bungee jumping, you get people going to these restaurants in
China we you eat these, I think they're frog livers, and they're fatal if they're not
prepared right, and every time somebody's going to die, but people love
that, they pay a lot of money just to scare themselves to death, and sometimes
they do die. You go to these movies which put you on the edge of the seat, when
special-effects merchants like Steven Spielberg managed to scare you so much...
Why do people like doing that? We have an addiction to fear. Why is that? Because we
don't know how to appreciate peace. We're bored when things go well, and we
think a bit of crisis will actually create this more sense of I'm worth
something, I am something, I'm doing something. A lot of time it's the restlessness
of humanity that creates the fear and worry which destroy humanity. We're
just afraid of be content, peaceful and happy. One reason is because many of us
have been conditioned since our early childhood to think we don't deserve to
be at peace, we don't deserve to be happy, so when happiness comes to us, we want to
destroy it. That's nothing to do with Buddhism, please understand that you have
a right to be happy, you deserve to be happy. It doesn't matter what you've done
in the past, you don't deserve to be flogged with a whip, but you can learn
"50 strokes of the cat" to learn some compassion for yourself and others. To be
kind to yourself, to grant yourself not just a moment of peace, but a whole life
of peace. You don't need to destroy the happiness by inventing all these things
to worry about and make yourself afraid. Otherwise, why is it the people
tune in to the horror movies, to the ghost movies, they go to these terrifying
places. Why is it that people do extreme sports, get on motorbikes, I remember one
of the most stupid sports events I ever saw when I was still a student, was doing
like Speedway on motorbikes, only it was on an ice track. And the only way you could
do this was actually putting a chain around the wheels with spikes on it, that's
only way that it was on ice. Going I don't know how fast around the track, Speedway on ice,
and every now and again someone would fall off and get spiked. That's a crazy thing to do.
Well, why do people do that? 'Cause they like the rush of excitement and the fear.
And why do people watch it? 'Cause they're waiting for someone to be injured. We're
afraid and we feed on that fear, and that's a terrible curse for human beings.
So the only way to stop that addiction to fear is, one, first of all recognize it.
Many of us like being afraid, when things are going well, we'll make
ourselves afraid by thinking of all the things which will go wrong. You may be
having a relationship with someone, a nice partner and you're afraid, what
will happen if she leaves me, or if he finds another partner? Because of
that fear in your relationship, you destroy that relationship. You're
destroying the trust which is an amazingly important part of
a relationship, because you're afraid, what will happen if he doesn't like me, if
something goes wrong, if she leaves, if she sees somebody else. You've been
in relationships where fear controls the relationship, and you know just how
stifling that is, how there is not really the bond of trust, granting each other
freedom, which will keep that relationship together. How many of your
own relationships have been destroyed by fear, and why do you do that?
When it's going well we still are addicted to this fear, recognize that.
When you're sick, sometimes the doctor comes up, you're afraid of what
the doctor is going to say in the report. But nevertheless, when you have that come
up, wow, you're alive, you've got something to do, something to be afraid of... very
often we are addicted to fear. And you can see how that comes up in the way we
live our lives. The only way to overcome that addiction to fear, first of all
recognize it, recognize that it's counterproductive, it's irrational,
it's not fair, it's not wise, it's not compassionate. And have another option,
the option of actually being at peace, and understanding as a human being
it's amazing how adaptable we are, doesn't matter which way the dice falls,
it doesn't matter what happens, we can and we have and we will always adapt, there's
always something you can do with whatever life throws at you. So you lose your
money, as many of you have been there before, the world
has been there before. I can't help but remember my own parents
who lived through, not just the Depression, but the Second World War. People
sometimes were afraid of terrorist attacks. My mother used to tell me there
was a terrorist attack every evening, with bombs falling from the sky,
night after night after night in the Blitz. Terrorist attacks like 9/11
multiplied a thousandfold, night after night after night. I think you all
know from your history that it was one of the most wonderful
times in London. It seems that, yes,
sometimes you lose some things, but you always gain something else
at the same time, clouds do have silver linings, in the
terror of that period of the Blitz, and there was an equal terror in Germany
when the British bombed back, no one was guilt-free from what happened
in those wars, there are no victors both sides are losers. In that time the
communities came together, there was incredible esprit de corps,
friendship, working together, looking after one another, and people who lived
through that time look back upon it with some tenderness. It wasn't all bad, in
fact there was much of it which was so meaningful and beautiful and wonderful
to see. This is always the case when the world changes. Even if you do get sick,
yeah there's the pain of the sickness, but there's also something wonderful happens
whenever the prognosis is, yeah you've got cancer and it's bad, but what
happens then it's amazing just what you learn from that experience and how many
friends come around, and how you realize how many people really care for you. And
you experience being the center of that care. In the very very bad illnesses which
will come to each one of us sooner or later, there's something beautiful in
that experience. Please remember that. Many of you have
had the bad cancers and got through it, many of you have known other people
dying in these deaths. There's always something wonderful there
as well as a pain, as well as the negativity, there's always something positive there,
remember both. And then you know whatever the outcome is going to be, there's
always something beautiful there, that will overcome a lot of the fear. 'Cause
a fear is, "It's going to be terrible, it's gonna be hopeless, I don't know how I'm
gonna cope with this." Check out what other people have done, check out what
history has taught you, and you realize there is nothing to be afraid of. Even what my teacher used to tell us, the
times when you're sick in hospital, when he'd come and visit you, and what'd he used
to say? "You're either gonna get better or you're gonna die." Why be afraid? Sickness wasn't
gonna last. That was Buddhist, so you die, so what?
You get reborn again, so big deal, it's just like changing your car, or moving
house. So what are you afraid of? Sometimes it's because of our cultures,
they make these things like loss of money, like sickness, like death... they
make it into being such a thing to be afraid of, they make it so negative, that
it cultivates fear. In my meditation retreat down at North Perth, we're teaching
people about what happens when you die, and several people there have had
so-called near-death experiences. You know heart attack, an accident somewhere,
floating out of your body, and everybody who has those experiences,
they always report them as the most beautiful and peaceful and wonderful time
of their life. I just remember one lady saying, "Oh, it was just so blissful and beautiful
being out of my body," she was in a hospital with some terrible sickness.
Her husband was racing to the hospital to try and catch her before she died, but
she had already died, she was away having a wonderful time, but then she came back
when she was wondering what her husband was up to. [laughter]
I mean in a good way, I'm not saying that he was playing around, but
you know whether he was worrying about her, whether he was coming, that
brought her back. She told us afterwards, "That was the most wonderful experience of my life."
I said, "Yeah, probably you like everybody else who's had those experiences
are no longer afraid of death." "Yes," she said "I'm not afraid of death. Why should you be
afraid of death when you know it's gonna be nice?" Are you afraid of death? You will
be when you don't understand what it is, if you are conditioned by our society
which makes you afraid of so many things, and when you like to be afraid. So when we
have a bit of wisdom we understand what's going to happen, and we sort of
understand that a lot of the fear which we give is an addiction, because we're
afraid of just being at peace, you want something to worry us, something to concern
ourselves. And when you also understand that fear actually makes things worse, it
actually makes you fall in the pool, then maybe you can let go of fear. You
know that you don't have to, or whatever happens, stock market, wars, the economy, your
relationship... whatever happens, there's always something you can do.
That's what life is, you've done it before, things have gone
terribly wrong, you have picked yourself up, you have
started again, you do make it work. When you understand that, where can fear
control you ever again? By telling you that you can survive anything, you can
even survive death with rebirth, that you can deal with the darkest most terrible
thing which happens in this world, you can deal with it. You've dealt with it,
other people have dealt with it, there's no more fear. When there's no more
fear, you feel free, just like the Buddha you become fearless. When it comes down
to it, the basic teaching is that the world outside you can't
control. No one can control the stock market, people think they can and they
charge you a lot of money because they assume they're an economist and they
know what's going on, just how stupid they've been found to be. Sometimes people
think you can control your body, and you go to health clubs and eat brown rice
and vegetarian food, and you still get sick. Sometimes people think you can control
your kids... ha ha ha ha ha. [laughter] You can't control the world, even at my meditation retreat, I've been teaching for 7 days, you can't even control your mind,
can you? They realize they can't, so if you can't control your mind, what can you
do? You can control your attitude to these things. You can't control life, but you
can control the way you look at life. You can't control the stock market, but you can
control your reaction to the ups and downs. You can't even control the health
of your body but certainly you can control the way you look at health and
sickness. It's the attitude to these things which the Buddha was talking
about, so we don't put fear in that space between you and the world. Nor do you put
anger, nor do you put the idea of controlling. Instead in the space between
you and the world, between you and your partner, you and the stock market, you and
your body, you and your own mind, you put things like peace, kindness and
gentleness. I've been teaching my retreatants that sometimes you can't even
watch the breath, sometimes you're very tired, sometimes you just can't do
loving-kindness meditation. There's one thing you can always do, or three
things you can always do, you can always be at peace with this, you can always
be kind to what you're experiencing, you can always be gentle. You can do that
at any time, if you're peaceful, if you're kind, if you're gentle, that in a nutshell
is the second factor of the Buddhist Eightfold Path, right intention. Intention,
the Buddha said, is kamma. Right intention is skillful kamma. When you're making
peace, when you're being kind, when you're gentle, you are making good kamma every
time. As a Buddhist I know the law of kamma works, if you make good kamma you
achieve prosperity, happiness, good health, positive results, which means that
it doesn't matter what I'm experiencing, it doesn't matter stock market going up
going down, I'm sick I'm healthy, people are listening people are not listening,
and giving the talk they're walking out the door, who cares? I can always be
peaceful, be kind, and be gentle, no matter what's happening outside. That's how I
make good kamma, that's how I create prosperity health and well-being, by
making good kamma this moment, but when I get afraid, when I get angry, when I get
negative, when I put fear between me and this moment, that is bad kamma. That is
negative kamma, it's going to create bad outcomes. I know that, this is a basic
physics of life. The more we are afraid, we put fear between me and that snake, me
and that tumor, me and that problem in my marriage, the more I put fear
there, it's bad kamma, it's going to lead to worse results. You should have enough
experience to realize that by now. That's why fear produces terrible results,
it's not necessary at all. Instead when we know good kamma, we
know how to put peace, kindness and gentleness between us and whatever we
experience in life. Even our own death, you can't stop the deaths, but at
least you can be peaceful with it, you can be kind to this whole process of nature,
you can be gentle with your death. You can always do that, you can't control the world,
but you can control your attitude towards it, the way you react to it, the
way you look at it, and that is where we can be positive. So whatever is happening,
stock market, life, health, the Buddhist Society, be very careful how you're reacting
to it. Always make peace and you'll find you will have peace. I sometimes made the
simile of building a house. A house in Western Australia is usually made of
bricks, hundreds and thousands of bricks laid one by one by the bricklayer. After
many thousands of individual actions of laying one brick at a time,
you have your house. Every moment you lay a moment of peace
you're building the house of peace. The house of peace is made by many many many
moments, when no matter what you're listening to, what you're feeling, what
you're knowing, you make peace with it, like the barking of the dog. For years
that dog has been barking on a Friday night and on a Saturday afternoon.
No way could I control that dog, but I certainly can make
peace with that dog, be kind and be gentle to it, and when I'm making peace, being kind,
being gentle, the problem is gone. Do you understand? Stock market... [dog barks] thank you dog, dog barking... that's what dogs do, they bark. That's
what stock markets do, go up go down, that's what your body does, gets sick gets
healthy, gets sick gets healthy, that's what the body does, it gets born it
dies. What's the problem? [dog barking] Thank you [laughter] ... it's all the way we react to it. So you may have a boss at work who shouts at you, that's what bosses do.
You ask somebody else who has a boss, they'll say that's what bosses are like. So why make problems there and trouble, you can always be kind, you can always be
gentle, you could always be peaceful. That way you are free. If you get angry,
afraid and have lots of fear, you're no longer free anymore. You're a
prisoner, a prisoner of this painful fear of what's happening to you, what's going
to happen in the future, what's gonna happen to your body, your relationships.
Do you really want to live like that? So you have an alternative, the end of fear,
you can do that and it's not hard to do. Cultivate these right intentions, when
you meditate you really cultivate this very very strongly. So no matter what
happens... kind, making peace, being gentle, and then you'll find fear can never come up.
They can take away your body, they can take away your wealth, they never can
take away your peace, your kindness, your gentleness, that is your true wealth. What
do you have money for anyway? To create some comfort in this world, some peace.
You can have that anyway, just like me, a monk with no shares, a monk with no
credit card, a monk with no bank account. A monk who
every time I write off to renew my health care card, 'cause I'm low-income,
when I write in all the boxes, "How much money do you earn a week?" "Nil." "How much
money do you earn from rental property?" "Nil." "How much money do you earn from
shares?" "Nil." "How much money do you earn from other sources?" "Nil." "Sum total of your yearly income?" "Nil." I love sending that form off [laughter]. When we first did it
we'd get the letter back, "Can you please explain how you've supported yourself."
And I said, "very wonderfully, very peacefully, and I'm fat." So if I can do
this, what are you worried about? Understanding that, you can understand
really there's nothing to be afraid of in life. Buddhism is a path without
fear, that's our goal, that's on offer here, how to live with no fear at all.
It's not positive stupidity, because sometimes some people have no fear
because they're stupid. I can't help telling this story, I going over time. In
Thailand many years ago when I was there about five years as a monk, that all the
buses in the Northeast were very old, 'cause they just tried to use them
until they could literally not to run anymore, so they're very old buses.
And it happened that one bus caught fire because it wasn't well maintained,
and actually people got incinerated inside. I don't know why it was, but
one bus after another, it was a whole spate of these buses suddenly catching fire.
I know one of the monks I was practicing with in the monastery, he was
actually on one those buses, he managed to get out but I think his bowl and his
robes all got burnt in the fire and he got some compensation from the bus company.
That's how dangerous it was. I was on one of these buses once.
As a monk they always put you in the front seat, you know why that is, so that
you can stop people having head-on collisions because you've got good kamma,
you protect all the people around the back. But .... There was a fire in the back and they
shouted out "fire, fire," and the bus driver slammed on the brakes, you almost went
through the window but you managed to stop yourself, so he slammed on the
brakes, and he was out the window himself. And all the people, they rushed out of
the door. And it was actually another monk with me, now as a monk we're not
supposed to get in contact with women, and nuns are not supposed to get in
contact with men. So there were women on the bus, but this monk sitting next to
me, he didn't mind, he was out. But I was a very well-behaved monk and
let the other people go out first of all, you know I was brought up in England
being a gentleman. [laughter] But most of the reason why I didn't get out
was 'cause my Thai wasn't that good, I wondered what all the commotion was about,
'cause I didn't understand "fire," and I hadn't read the newspapers of how many
people got killed. So I just sat there quite peacefully and actually I was...
I wasn't the last one out, I was the second last one out because it
was another man who lingered in the back, and he looked, there was only a small amount of
smoke, and he shouted out to the other people, everyone was out
except me and this guy, and he said, "It's only a cigarette, it's not
a real fire, just cigarette smoke." So when people heard that, they put the cigarette out, and everyone started coming in, I was sitting in the front seat, and they said,
"Oh, the saint, the arahant, the holy enlightened Western monk. Oh, you're so wonderful, you had no
fear," not like that the other scalawag monk who ran out and touched all of us. [laughter]
That was a wonderful moment for me but to be honest, I wasn't a hero I was just stupid
'cause I didn't know what was going on. So sometimes fearlessness is actually
stupidity and that's not what we recommend here. I mean the real
fearlessness, you know what's going on, doesn't matter what happens, you can
always do something with it, you're not afraid. You're gonna die, you live,
you're gonna die anyway, you're gonna live, maybe you died, maybe you get sick, then you get
healthy, it's only pain you can deal with that, big deal. Things come, things go. So
please use your wisdom, and please practice making peace, being kind, being
gentle, you can always do that. And don't get sucked in to making anger,
making fear, that kills you. And that also stops prosperity in the world, and it
stops harmony in this world as well. So you can overcome fear and just like the
Buddha outside, no fear. That's the talk this evening on
letting go of fear. Okay, so does anyone have any comments
or questions on this talk this evening. You know sometimes one of the biggest fears is
fear of public speaking. I don't mind that. Or fear of getting
questions, one of the questions we got other retreat center said, "Why are you
Ajahn Brahm, you've been many many years as a monk, but why is it your robes always
fall off, but those other two monks sitting next to you, they've got really neat ropes?" So they
always ask questions which are trying to test you out. So I just said,
"Oh, it's because after many years as a monk you learn how to let go and keep
loose." [laughter] You just play around, you know when you
play around you're not afraid of anything. So keep your sense of humor and
then you never get afraid. Any other questions coming up? You know one of the most frightening things to do, not just public speaking, but live interviews on
TV, that's one of the most frightening things because if you make one mistake,
if you pick your nose or something, then actually they record that and they
send it to all the other networks, I think there's a show called "Bloopers" or
something or "Big Mistakes." So imagine that you're on TV and all your friends,
the whole world, is watching you. So anyway you know when you're on TV,
you just make fun. Yeah... [question being asked] Okay, you're saying that once you went
into this horror movie theater or whatever, or exhibition or theme park or
whatever, and you were scared so you came into the present moment, you were
right here. Yeah, you were in the present moment but you're tense, you're not free, that's
not the way to get in the present moment. I know that some Zen monasteries, you're
facing the wall and there's someone walking behind you with a stick. Now that makes
you terrified, sure you're in the present moment, but you're not peacefully, you'll never
get enlightened that way. So that's the same sort of thing, that's why we don't
have a stick here, sometimes I think we should have, but no, otherwise we get sued
in this place. So, yeah, you're in the present moment, just like you're
riding a motorbike, you know really fast, yeah you're in the present moment, but
how do you feel? You feel tight and tense, there's no freedom there, there's excitement
but there's no happiness. It's great we know the difference between excitement
and real happiness. Don't make that mistake, bungee jumping you're
really right in this moment, but you're not free, you're not relaxed. So you can be in the present moment and relax the same time.
[to audience member ] Yes, way in the back. Absolutely, I can guarantee this, I'll
give you a money-back guarantee, if you don't believe in God
you will not go to hell. [laughter] Absolutely 100%, I know what I'm talking
about, so you don't have to worry about that rubbish. So 100% percent, so
you're free now, you can trust me, I don't tell lies. But again people say
that, and some think, "Just in case." That's called fear. If you come to the
Buddhist Society here you go to heaven, the highest of heavens, just look at the
heavenly monks in front of you, and the blissful serene people, so
that's the way you want to go, you know by example. I remember the advertisements I
used to see, between these lovely stories about Grasshopper, they were saying that
if you get this toothpaste you'll be happy and peaceful, it's
actually the end product you want to see before you buy the goods. And here you
got the end products, so happy and peaceful and free. So basically that's a
lot of rubbish, people start saying those things. Why do they say things? Do
what we ever say that, in this Buddhist place, that if you don't come to the
temple you go to hell, you don't meditate you'll burn for eternity. We don't say that,
we don't need to, 'cause we don't need to use fear. In fact
the whole idea of using fear is really unethical. Instead we have the
positive, if you let go of these things you'll be happy. And you
know that for yourself in this life. So it's obvious, you can test it out in this
life, you don't have to worry. Isn't that wonderful?
You have a path here which is find out for yourself in this life, you can know
happiness, you can know peace, know what it feels like to be a heavenly being.
Many of those meditators are blissing out, back in North Perth. You've heard me say before
the "bliss better than sex." A couple of people have had that, down in North
Perth. Bliss better than sex. Oh, yeah, wow, oh ... give me more of this.
You can experience that at these retreats, so you don't have to believe it. It's
not negativity, you know you say... you're gonna go to hell.
What does that do to you? Does that give you any bliss, does that turn you on? You
have to be really weird if that turns you on. Yes, at the back over there. [question being asked] Younger? Absolutely. Because it's when you get afraid you get lots of worry lines, that's why they're called worry lines. So it's amazing when you don't have to be afraid or worry about things, of course your facial muscles last
longer. Look at my robe, if I kept tearing at it like this and pulling and pushing, it
wouldn't last very long. I keep it nice and loose, this will last for
a couple of years. So if we keep your face nice and loose,
it'll last for a long time. [laughter] So you see the secret of youth, you don't have
to go to beauty parlor. Forget Botox... meditation, Dhamma, and it's
much cheaper. I don't know how much does Botox cost these days. Aha, you know the answer,
means you've been going to those stupid places. You don't need Botox.
[audience member speaking] $500? Wow, you could save a lot of money by coming here every Friday evening. Okay, better finish off now. Okay,
well thank you for listening everyone, and thank you for the lovely questions
and answers afterwards.
