The Nature of Your Mind | Ajahn Brahm | 8 May 2020

the beginning the meditation quite honestly hadn't got a clue what I was going to talk about but just as I mentioned a word just to learn about how to make peace and be at ease and comfortable with your own mind and how the mind when it's at peace it's a very relaxing healthy body it so started me being reminded that this thing which we call the mind many people say its name many people talk about it but very few people know what it truly is and just how powerful this mind can be there's so many different benefits and even just a couple of days ago someone showed me an article about athletes especially cyclists who were running races up in the mountains so high the the oxygen level was only a half as much oxygen as down in the level planes and even though that sometimes they needed oxygen bottles to be able to ride their bicycles because they weren't able to breathe in enough oxygen to satisfy the exertion of their legs on the bicycle some doctors they tried a few experiments on these cyclists they tried giving them empty bottles and some of the cyclists didn't even notice they were empty they were still being able to cycle as if they're getting oxygen from the bottle it's like a placebo effect they were wondering how can that work I remember years ago seeing other articles or people who had problems with their knees and the doctorís would put them under anaesthetic do an incision on their knee so it up again immediately without doing anything to their need putting a bandage on and they got better doctor SIBO affect the nature of the lion being able to influence the health of the body is again a very well-known but what is this mind and how can we get to know this mind so well there we can make use of these things and it's like this mind we know it's very powerful we don't know really what it is so where to find it it was because of that that I adapted really a lot of adaption to a Assembly of the Buddha of the and I called the simile of the Emperor and in this simile this metaphor there was an emperor who was so powerful so strong and influential but no one knew who the emperor was every time the emperor appeared in public or in front of the TV screen the emperor was covered with five garments was covered with boots which when a half way past his knees up to his thighs and then over the boots were these trousers which are overlapped the top of the boots and went up way past his waist and over the top of his body from the neck covering down to the overlapping the trousers and down to his down to the wrist as I said his we didn't know for now for so he there was his jacket on hid their hands was gloves which overlapped the end of the jacket sleeves and on top of his head was his huge helmet so every parts of his body was covered and where the different garments met those garments overlap so no one no one could see what this m4 was whether it was male or female whether it was Asian or African or Irish or Australian they didn't know who the m4 was but it was very important to find out as this emperor was incredibly powerful so how can you find out what this Emperor is the only way is to take off those five pieces of clothing to remove the trousers the boots the jacket the gloves and the helmet to see what's inside and then you can see exactly what this powerful Emperor called your mind truly is in that simile the five pieces of clothing zhonya simile it's not be doing anything rude or naughty I'm a monk I'm a very sensitive muck so I don't do anything weird or nasty like that but the simile is you take away the five coverings of your mind and those five coverings are seeing or sight hearing tasting smelling and physical touch but those five things disappear when they're no longer there what's left no there are times when you don't see things when you close your eyes there are times even when you don't hear smelling tasting is pretty easy to stop but times when the whole body vanishes you can't feel any sensations at all what's the best way of achieving of that experiencing that obviously death but that's going a bit too far just the experiment of finding out what this inside empro truly is but the other way is like what we've just been doing for half an hour meditating you may have noticed when a person does meditate they close their eyes and after a very short while you can't see anything I say after a short while because when you first close your eyes you see the inside of your eyelids but that's not important so their sense of sight vanishes and at this point I usually bring up this experience I had when I was a layperson when I was meditating wherever I could find a place to meditate and this was in a Zen monastery in the north of England and in this end monastery I didn't know what I was supposed to do they just in the little Hall which is a converted cowshed that we sat down and we had to meditate with our eyes open is one of the first times I had meditated with my eyes wide open I didn't know what I was supposed to do but I just meditated but because I'd done some meditation before and I knew how to be in the present moment and stopped this inner speech as I was just with my eyes open just being very peaceful very calm my strange scene happened one of those weird experiences will show you this more to this world and you'd thought and at this time I was a theoretical physicist when I just looked at this wall just a whitewashed wall then certainly without warning the wall disappeared it vanished it just wasn't there anymore it was so weird one minute there was a wall solid and now there was nothing there and of course instead of getting scared I think I was going crazy I use know what we're doing Buddhism called inside what's happening and it soon became very clear to me that this is just the nature of the physical senses especially the sense of seeing sight if you want something for your full attention or watching and what you observe doesn't move or change it disappears the sense of sight turns off of course in those days I never had many similes but today today one of the best similes is the computer screen you may have your screensaver on there beautiful picture and then you don't touch the mouse no one touches anything and after a little while the screensaver turns off bit of efficiency not wasting energy and that's what site does if nothing moves the sense of sight turns off if you're in a silent place a place where there's very little background noise no ambient the ambient level of noise is is even it doesn't have to be perfectly quiet well I must admit though that I've been in some places or some caves or some monasteries or some places in even European forests in the wintertime and no one is around well in the Australian portion sometimes you get up early in the morning and there's no wind and everything is just so silent and peaceful sometimes that external quiet just turns off my hearing in other words the sense of hearing appears smell and taste are very easy to turn off well the hardest of the five senses to turn off is your bodily sense the sense of touch but just doing some meditation if I can I'm 69 year old male just my body should be a pain in the butt and anywhere everywhere else actually but when you meditate you just put the body down you will accidents best you can it's never perfect but after a while the body vanishes it is a place you can't feel your knees you can't feel your guts you can't feel your butt I can feel my butt now this huge pressure you know because I'm a very I'm a monk with gravitas I say a very very rounded figure in other words fat but it's a happy fat and there's a lot of weight on my butt's and I can feel the pressure now but when you meditate you don't feel anything the whole feeling disappears the whole body just you can't fit anything this is a beautiful experience just to let go of that sense of physical touch I'm sitting there your eyes closed you can't hear anything although the sound of this air conditioner on heating's it's cold today there's no right next to me I can hear this now but when I was meditating couldn't hear a thing because his head some sound turned off so when you actually learn how to calm down all those senses calming down so nothing moves nothing changes then after a while they disappear this is the art of meditation you don't have to do anything just keep things still motionless unchanging and they disappear by themselves so you can't feel your body you can't hear any sounds you're not seeing smelling or tasting anything there's five senses as five pieces of clothing which hide the Emperor I just call it the Emperor because someone is incredibly powerful inside and the first thing about that the emperor is it male or female ha ha ha as a god gender anything to do with gender male female or any other genders in between all of those genders are to do with your body when you get to the mind there's no gender at all it's a beautiful experience because it answers many many many questions sometimes that people have arguments a can of Buddha maybe the next footer can the next would it be female why not because in truth the Buddha's not male nor female is to do with a mind an awakened mind which is not got agenda it's not God her her race it's not got a country of origin hasn't even got an age something beyond those things and this is something she's not theory or nice speech just to inspire people this is what you feel you know when the five senses disappearing you're going to the world of the mind so that world of the mind which appears through meditation when you get to know this powerful mind it's great effect on your happiness and sickness or so many times that he should have been sick so many times I was sick and using meditation to overcome that sickness just to let the body just disappear for a while oh this I usually tell these stories to the monks but how why not this evening well in my first or second year as I marked this was 43 years ago in Northeast Thailand and like many of the monks of Western monks in this area I got a fever one day and no one knew what it was it was actually scrub typhus fever I only found that out a few years later you found it out because there's one doctor one title dude always coming off of food to the monastery and he notice all his monks were getting sick when he got sick once and now this fever and he said this is like typhoid fever or typhus fever and he checked in the and the Health Authority said no no no no there's no scrub typhus in that part of Thailand and so after a little bit of efforts and a little bit of investigation you know he said well maybe these are Westerners maybe the locals have got immunity over many many generations and of course he was totally right all the local villagers they get bitten by these mites in the forest there's tiny little little bugs which you could hardly see and but they were immune they've got the immunity from generation to generation but the Westerners we got the fever but I do remember just how blessed that experience was fortunately I was young because I was young he was just full of out 2425 you know energy fear you're invulnerable but you're really sick I just remember the first night when I was in that hospital it was the monks ward of this hospital people are very kind but it was just very basic says one of these wars was six beds on either side of roughly and it was a nurse's station oh I remember tis the fear which arose just when the nurse disappeared at 6 p.m. I did know enough Thai to ask the Mike in the next bed the night nurse hasn't appeared yet should we go and tell somebody and he looked to me with disbelief what are you talking about a night nurse there is no night nurse in this hospital the only work from 7:00 in the clock in the morning to six o'clock at night that's all what happens if some of us get sick at night if we have a medical crisis nice is unlucky karma that's all and that attitude of just saying it's unlucky karma was not very encouraging and it was there later on oh I have to mention the nurse I know this is a wonderful people male nurses female nurses but this one nurse needs to come to the monks ward to inject me with antibiotic I'll never forget her I can even picture her now I was a young monk just learning my meditation trying to be kind to all beings but I have to confess in all honesty whenever I did my loving-kindness meditation or chanting in the morning or evening I always made exceptions may all beings be happy in well but not her you know why I was just so hard she would come twice a day to inject me on the bottom I was going to say the bum but I shouldn't say the bum because as I would were to say the bum on the bottom oops I just said it's he times to inject me and these were the days when they had recyclable needles so they just they'd use them in Bangkok first of all and having use them in Bangkok and not being able to sharpen them anymore we send them out to the provinces and who born was one of the those provinces the country bumpkins they sometimes called him the right word for them in their translating from tie into Isan northeastern into English and they said just they use them in the Audrey wards first of all and then the last place they take they'd use them in the monks walk because we were tough especially a forest man with a tough feet and and that was true because I remember just going to give blood a few times they never give you an any anesthetic they just put the thing in as though your for smash you don't mind a bit of pain they could have asked anyway so she'd come twice a day with his these dull old needles to inject my bottoms and it wasn't an injection the needles I have these days to inject you they're just so painless use them once and it's throwing away these ones that kept on you some sort of pretty doll by the time they got into your backside and she never injected them never injected stabbed oh that really hurt especially after about three or four weeks twice a day my back was so sore so I just it was a failure I should give loving kindness to all beings but I must admit that was very hard but anyway well I'm saying all this was that was also I can't miss this opportunity when a giant shark came to visit you can imagine I've been in there for a couple of weeks and not getting better at all still having the fever no one knew what was wrong and then a giant charm my teacher came to visit me and I felt just so-so I didn't want a special that he taken the time out to visit me I was so wonderful and he came by my bedside and he said Brahma Wong so I said I would had some some kindness and he said you know why they're gonna get better or you're going to die then he turned around and left Oh sometimes I don't know the time I thought if that's what you're gonna say but not to come here but you know he's you can't argue that that was so true and as it was as you can see I got better but I do remember one of the times and I wish I had been a bit more mindful but I can understand why I wasn't cuz I had all such such incredibly low energy never had so much low energy it's that time fever of about three or four weeks and anyway that's one day I got sort of depressed but not a depression which was negative I don't know that I thought oh this is really awful as nothing's working this is terrible so why don't I do some meditation now she practiced know what my teacher would teach me what the Buddha would say do something useful now this was like three weeks or four weeks into a a very heavy fever and nothing was working feelings are so exhausted so I decided to meditate I'm obviously not cross-legged which was laying on the bed laying on my back or half of my back half on this off on that and being able just to let go of my body and I was such a wonderful experience just sitting there when also not sitting there laying there with legs all over the place we've seen people in hospital with a fever they're not really caring about just how their body is positioned you're all over the place for the interest going deep inside away from my body closing my eyes there's no award of a hospital so there's lots of noise there but I couldn't hear anything no smell no taste just going inside there's some nice beautiful mind-state oh it's just a wonderful time not really sure that would be when the fever stopped simply because that's the nature of the mind it's clearly powerful and it's so powerful inside it just stops all this stuff in your body I'm very happy afterwards the negativity all that went and also show me that those Mead meditations are possible even when you're sick so maybe I wasn't told they're not possible a lot of times people think all you can't do it when you're sick it's impossible so they don't even try it's not actually trying it's just letting go I'm taking off those five garments so you can see once we all mind is the mind isn't sick it's just the body is sick when the mind is access and come powerful like huge things for your own body and heal it and so a lot of times if in the Buddha said though the only times is and when it became very old and lots of aches and pains all over the place the only time you could have some peace was going into the deep meditations away from the body they just showed you some of the power of this thing which we call our mind I know what actually is it is true there for some people they always so are the mind is an exist and these are scientists who should really be ashamed of their thinking of scientific credentials I often mention having been no a scientist myself sir I'm a scientist and having known things like quantum theories is how much the mind is involved in the nature of our world you can't exclude you and I don't know why some people try to it's one of the reasons why one of the definitions of materialism this is philosophy but it's very simple to understand why did I say that philosophy is simple to understand sometimes philosophy or any of these things is is explained so badly that people think is complicated but this is just the definition of materialism in philosophy materialism is just they're gonna stuff here and the mind is just some byproducts of stuff now what happens when stuff vanishes what happens when the body disappears in deep meditation where you're perfectly alerts perfectly awake and you know exactly what's going on inside you're accessing this in which we call the mind and this body yeah you come back to it afterwards but the body does feel like a just a car like a vehicle which you use but it's not know really who you are most vehicle which you use in which you can drive all around whoever you need to go but wish you wonderful to be able to leave it when you need to leave it and it answers a lot of questions I even just the day just before coming here I just conducted a little funeral service for people I've known since at it the mum before there they were born and so it's wonderful having been here in Australia for Perth over thirty Six's it's the 37th year I've been here hey I want a minute because I came on way suck in 1983 so this is 37 years now 37 years in Australia well some of these people I've known since you know before they were born seen them balls him to grow up she doesn't get married see them sort of go through their life together and having their own kids there's a great privilege having known these Buddhist families for such a long time but fearful for them too to understand that when a person dies is in the body dies and this mind just continues on and that's one of the reasons why that people can actually see people when they're dead can actually even feel them or hear the ghosts but ghosts aren't scary I don't know why people are such as afraid of ghosts is not even supernatural is mattress what happens when a person dies their body disappears but their mind is just still they're still alert sometimes confused if you don't know what's going on then if you've heard of people who have out of the body experiences you know when they just have a bad accident or something or they're on an operating table and the operation sort of goes wrong what's one of those cases I was one case was of this young man it was a boy about 5 6 7 years of age she told me this story at length and he was having some operation this was many years ago in Yugoslavia when Yugoslavia was just a one country and he was having an operation and he died on the operating table and he described this how he was floating out of his body and he could see that the doctors who were operating on him were looking at the wrong place they weren't seeing where the problem was and so he said that's where he was like dying I was actually dead outside of his body and then he said all he did a five or six year old boy that's how old he was he just thought to talk to us no it couldn't speak outside of his body but just thought doctor don't look over here look over there and immediately that's what the doctor did and he shouted out hey here's a problem and because they could see what the problem was that they solve the problem and he was fine again he recovered but he said to me and he told me this story he was one of my students meditating in carnot prison for many years ago he was a convict in the jail and he said we didn't really mind being a convict he said because ever since that time he came back into his body but whenever he wanted to leave his body he could he could do the old astral traveling make up a mind made body as we say in Buddhism and he could leave his body so so whenever he wants to watch a football match didn't matter what place and they put him in he'd just leave his body and go and watch you he wanted to go and see a concert by someone in Perth he didn't even need to to book tickets he just go there in his astral body and just get no front seat view and the way he said it and all the other information he gave me said yes okay I think that's pretty accurate what he was saying so this is knowing that something else apart from this physical part of this mind and it is powerful because you're in this body for a while because you get sicker it falls apart we are the problems with know the gender and status and race and stuff and all that stuff just disappears when you know that's just your make of car your vehicle is your driving in your mind that's where all the real action is and that's a place where we access in our deep meditations and it's not theory anymore this is something which were actually you do experience again and again and again and it's also because it's free of this body it's also incredibly happy because the body is like a burden for you even if you got a young fit healthy body like me that's not fit and healthy there's youngest we're getting old get to the funeral I went to today the person who died is the same age as me 69 but she wasn't a month but anyway the when a when a person does get old it's just a body getting or the mind is something else and you can always and your body gets sick body gets a key even the body gets tired the mind is something totally different and people ask well what actually is it and at this point that it's a little sort of party treat which I can't do here because it's mostly an empty today just a few of the workers are here today that is the AV team and stuff but just sometimes I ask people a little trick and I say are you happy or are you disappointed today and sometimes and then the holes which I give talks in sometimes when there's no Kofi it is sometimes thousands of people in those horse that's very good trick to do and I said if you're happy put up your right hand if you're miserable put up your left hand I'm one of them you must put up and be honest and see all these hands going up I say keep them up now with your finger please if you're happy please point to that happiness for me point to it if you're miserable point to it there's wonderful things to see people I wish say well don't you film that because they go for them here they're all over the place because they have trouble locating a simple thing which they've known for so many years happiness when you're happy where is it you see in your heart who is in your head if you're say let's do the opposite miserable if you're really angry where is the anger is it human it's cause again no these things belong to your mind not your heart it's not your physical heart when you're in love the whole body's in love when you're depressed where's depression what part of your body is depression it you find your calm points with which is one of the important parts one important arguments that these things don't live in the body these things live in the mind just like if you want to know what is a garden the garden is where you find beautiful bushes flowers trees these are the sorts of things which define the word garden no buildings not concrete no well sometimes you have what they call hard landscaping but no a real garden and insist beautiful natural things the mind is defined by the things which live in it things like joy things like happiness even laughter laughter is not part of the brain laughs is part of the mind inspiration if you have been so inspired sometimes you like to cry those tears of inspirational joy where do they come from where are they they come from your mind this is why all people young people sick people people about to die they can still laugh with joy waiting to see I've seen an is true but it's because it's not coming from the sick body it's coming from the mind which has joy and happiness so it's important to know that that shows that there's some places in this world some places in this body in this body but some things which we just haven't really explored the nature of the mind and of course how the mind can affect the real world of stuff the pear project PE AR Princeton educate or something but anyway that lots of people have been just trying to find out is this really true care and their mind chains like random number generators and of course it can has been proven the evidence is there there's not coming from brains this is coming from Minds interfering with natural rules of science brilliant to see great professors I really admire them because actually what they have to prove takes far more evidence than usual criteria of proof anyway to go back to the nature of the mind that's what we cultivate more and more in this path we call Buddhism or spirituality to purify the mind to strengthen it making a really powerful and that's you know we're in our meditation if you have some really nice meditation very peaceful still may then what happens is you get energized you get power I don't know I think because I've been here for such a long time in Perth and I basically decided how we're going to be doing the teachings on a Friday evening do some meditation first and then the talk you know to be know quite truthful one of the reasons I do this is because for half an hour you know I'm leading you meditating but that's just stuff I always say but I'm meditating myself and when I met it so you get very peaceful and still you only get so much energy and joy coming up so that's what powers and he talks which I give the peace of joy from that little half an hour of meditation which means your mindfulness your awakeness is very strong which also means you can perceive so much joy and depth in whatever is going on oh the storage comes up in my mind I always tell this story it seems when I teach a meditation retreat ajar Negro but I'm not a jhana Grove today that's our meditation retreat center this is the the road which goes up to berdiana monastery Kingsbury drive and this event happened after I'd been living there for about seven years and in those seven years of living there was a lot of work building and cleaning and teaching and doing so much work but I've been going up and down that road maybe three or four times a day on average I so know three or four times a week on average but this day I just I think I've been giving a talk somewhere and stayed overnight and somebody picked me up from the train in the morning and I had time there was a beautiful spring morning not hot blue skies were not totally blue like sometimes I see the empty skies can be burning you know too hot here in Western Australia this was cool beautiful day with some those cotton walk clouds just drifting over white just drifting over the over the hillside and I asked my driver please can you let me out of the car I'm gonna walk up the hill today and he fed she let me out and I walked up 32 and a half two point two kilometers from the bottom of the hill up to the monastery where I was living I know plenty of time I was not trying to conquer the hill of beats on record I just happening up at a nice comfortable play pace enjoying the scenery but that's when I got very shocked because what I was seeing was totally different than anything I remember viewing through the window of a car walking up that hill was like walking in a different hillside I saw so much detail so much beautiful green grass and the little creek and the bottom of the valley and the trees and they I don't think was any cows in those days there was sheep and I could see all this wonderful wildlife and and grasses and trees and bushes and how come I never seen that before how come I miss that and then I just stopped I was just so in awe of what I was experiencing and seeing I stopped and just stared I didn't move and at that the hillside just went to another level of beauty to see these individual blades of grass so green like fluorescent and walks with the lichen on them and the tree barks and little animals and things going around and it was so gorgeous with one of those moments you just don't want to tear yourself away to walk up to the monastery the monastery was right there - so much beauty in and detail but whenever you enjoy something like that you always have no what we call the insight practice you have stillness and please be why what is happening and of course I soon figured it out what was happening was when you are watching through the window of a car you may think it's going slow but it's still going at least 30 40 50 kilometers an hour up the hill and what is actually happening to your eyes you've been bombarded by one vision after another vision after another vision because the cars going fast and then your eyes don't have time that's all it really is just time because the how your eye sees is a chemical reaction on your retina and that chemical reaction was probably already started maybe only 5% completes when another image of sight goes through the pupil of my eye onto my retina I had to deal with that the colors hadn't properly formed the detail wasn't there when I got out and walk slowly the images which fell on my retina at the back of my eye was slower they had more time to complete the chemical reaction and for my brain to actually appreciate and see the image that's why I just walking you saw so much more so much more beauty but of course nothing nothing matched standing perfectly still just standing there the eyes open not moving and just seeing this the hillside has open up and the greens the Blues the Browns that graze were just more beautiful I've never seen before so they've been polished and the detail the textures everything was just so clear that would only happen when you know how to move slowly and to stop when you stop so much beauty opens up so much joy so much happiness because you're seeing things now more with your mind it's a mind which has the beauty to it the body's gone slow the mind now picks up those wonderful experiences so when you do start cultivating your mind through stillness with slowness taking off the clothes of this Emperor so the Emperor is free you can see so much more so much more joy happiness so much more power you won't happiness and well-being it's one of the most luckiest things and one might say lucky good karma fortune I don't know to learn how to meditate and keep her mind really still there's so much joy and happiness as it was out of that nature and the power of the mind and of course it's much more to say about the mind but for that you should be to people have meditated a lot you really appreciate what I would say about how powerful this mind is how full of joy it is now I can teach you so much more so you never need to feel afraid of death never even need to feel afraid of sickness so much more to this and that you learn from understanding the Emperor the nature of your mind oh really getting into this but it's 10:00 to 9:00 so I should stop now so thank you all for listening now we're gonna have some questions and hopefully some decent answers you never know what question is going to come so I never know what the answers gonna be so let's have a seat thank you how good excellent I'm very happy to have more questions because usually I mentioned to people we have three questions on this little machine the tablet and then I talked to people who have come to the session but because here it's covered so you can't have the usual crowd well afterwards I can just just go straight back to my room so from here so I can answer more questions online the first Oh Eva from Cambridge hi ajahn brahm that's okay we saw at university have you ever had out-of-body experience now whenever you say personal experience I've got to be very careful on this because sometimes I give too much away already out of the body experiences when you leave your body I know a person who has had the product this is actually I'll get out of breaking any any rules so you're not supposed to sort of say anything which will make people think you're special how the body experiences when you have these out-of-body experiences at first you think wow this is really interesting but you shouldn't get quite bored and it's also now am i interested in watching movies or going to football matches in and out of the body experience and a football match is on at the moment anyway so it's a waste of time but also you've got to be very careful because I have like many people just have this sense of what's right and what's wrong there the level of virtue may be a one thing to actually to go and just say check up on my monks I wonder what they're doing this evening my monks are they really meditating over there just lazing around in there cooties it's like you know having a CCTV camera which no one can really know you can just go and watch people why didn't he there's this Burmese gentleman many many years ago and he told me to so he had his job in air conditioning and no just doing contracts he had a job in Darwin so I was in Darwin and his English wife was in Canning Carrington somewhere and you know he was you know he really loved his wife he's a very good man who's incredibly jealous so again he was over in Darwin and he'd come and visit his wife then his his astral body just to check up that she wasn't misbehaving and she didn't have no none of those powers or anything but she would know because he was the husband he would know okay it's I can't say you say it was Simon that wasn't his name yet another name but I don't want to give the game away who this was oh I said Simon look I'm faithful to you go back to Darwin and go back to work and his truth you know so tell her afterwards he was actually visiting just to check it out that she was okay who knows there's other body experiences so that's something which you don't want to invade people's privacy from Melbourne I am a very sociable person on a funny quality and very hard without seeing in one what advice do you have to me please help get into your astral body and then go anywhere and the police can't catch you you can go watch movies in go and see your friends you can have an astral body party is that social I don't know the idea is quite sort of interesting so because you know you're in your room there and just your body's there your mind is somewhere else you may a sociable person grunting harder seeing anyone one of the persons you can always see is yourself that's really important to have this self-love I just that's why it was my brother Tony just he sent me an email just haven't heard from you okay is covert okay okay in Western Australia because it don't get much news of Western Australia all the news over there is UK I said now I no trouble at all but what do you expect we used to social quarantine as monks this is no usual practice for us stay in your room and heart for weeks on end so for what's the difference how come once the social quality nor being with lots of people I live a very weird life because sometimes I can do six months without seeing any human being in not speaking that six months retreat I did and then you come out and maybe three more four months later being sort of Indonesia with three or four thousand people no talking them signing books and saying hello and this is you go to extreme so I'm not supposed to stay the middle way but you can stay in total solitude you know be some like rock star muck but anyway so how come there's a monk you can be with many many people or by yourself equally happy and the reason is so is because when you are in quarantine you're by yourself there's always someone there and that's you know made a point and they caught it these days self-love Oh being a good friend to myself never being hard on myself never have been critical of course I make mistakes and say the wrong thing every now and again actually too often probably but you don't find fault with yourself you don't try and escape from yourself so you know you're in your room in your heart in my cave actually and I just enjoy my own company when you go and have to speak with one of the monks you enjoy the friendship of your monks when you go and just check up on the the buildings to work in the monastery you're friendly to the Builder your friend to yourself it's just as many people always by yourself it's a whole idea of loving kindness joy peace being in the moment that's what I call loving this moment so funny quality very hard without seeing anyone what you're seeing is suffering wanting being separated from where you are so how much seeing the positive signs of quality what you can do in Melbourne standard little technique is get a piece of paper put a vertical line down the middle on the left hand side why all the things you hates about quarantine oh that difficulties all the terrible parts of living in quarantine all the stuff which drives you mad and crazy and nuts not being able to see your friends well they're all down on the left-hand side only take you a few seconds writing more than that but you know easy to fill in and then on the right-hand side all the benefits and positives were being in quality right Eddie yes there are like one or two down I don't have to go to work I don't have to if you've got a car I don't have to be in traffic jams we don't be in buses or wait for buses you know to get caught in the wet right all the positives down about being quality until you fill up that side too if I once you get one or two or three positive things about being in quarantine you can think of many more until you get those first three or four down it's very difficult once you've done that get out the pair of scissors cut the piece of paper in half down that vertical line down the middle all the things you hate about quarantine throw that in the rubbish bin all the things you like about quarantine the positives photocopy it many times and that were dated pretty different places in your house leave it around the place in your garden always to remind you other positives in life in India my mother wants me to perform religious activities at temples and bow before God I finally sanctities dry that dry without in my heart I always argue with her please advise I don't know if it's an Indian tradition but it's a Western tradition at Thai tradition most traditions we always argue with our family members especially when we get old are you with your mother argue with your father or whatever Blatz I remember just how long each I mother gonna be there with you so if that's what she wants to do please you go and do it with her it's not in your heart - maybe bow before it in a temple for God or something but isn't it in your heart to love your mum just do it because of her this is not loving God it's loving your mum you do that their mum because I love you so and after a while she won't be there forever in your life be a time while you get married and you go to another place get a job somewhere else but while you're with your mum just be kind to her and I say that because know the funeral today and rather passed away and I told the children know is remember your mum and do some of the things which she like to do the good things you like to do even if you don't think it's appropriate this is not your sort of thing that was your mum so do it for her from Portugal how can we reconcile with living with the fear of the virus and try to live a relatively normal life well the virus won't be there forever and just don't let the virus get into your mind the virus can only attack the body mind is something totally different and you can see other people even some people who have the virus this is from Portugal so they're harder hit than places like Perth Australia but still this is saying of the Buddha even though your body is sick don't let your mind be sick even though your body is sick don't let your mind be sick in other words you see some of the gorgeous beautiful stuff and having the the virus this too will pass and they'll just focus on the virus there's so many other beautiful things happening and that gorgeous country like Portugal its May is the spring time is coming up to some of their the trees must be gorgeous the animals sunshine have a look at that and then you put the virus in perspective the old story happiness my hand my hand is so big I can't see anybody what I can see is my hand is it the fact my hand is too big is that the problem was it because I'm holding it too close to my self why some people hold the virus problem too close that's all they see you can see no other joyner the piece and no other thing beyond the virus pull your hand out here where it belongs that's where your hand belongs now my hand hasn't diminished in size but I can see so much more once it is I've got perspective they can live life you know that people would tell me over in Auschwitz the people are still crack jokes have fun even though they knew they've probably died that following day it's wonderful what they how human beings can relate to such difficulties because many more people died there even my family parents and grandparents would tell me about life in London during the Second World War during the Blitz where a bomb fell right next to tennis house the next terraced house with my mother and grandma were people in our next house and neighbors they were instantly killed my mother had her arm lacerated how do you remembers it but it did happen apparently and these were the old terrace houses which was early maybe one maybe five meters wide six meters wide to the next house and they said there were some of the most wonderful times when even though many people were dying there's so much kindness and help and sure and even joy as well so that's how you reconcile living with the field of iris if you live life ours is I told the story today it's an old Buddhist story there's a funeral which I went to I held up a cup of water a glass of water and said can you see the crack in the grass can I turn chart on with his story because when he told me is that I can't see any crack in this glass is a pretty good glass said the crack is microscopic he said it's a crack of fragility impermanence and it sure one day someone will drop this grass and that crack will open up and this glass will die he said if this glass was plastic if it couldn't break that man we wouldn't need to care for this grass because it's got a crack because it will break one day that's why we have to care for it look and not treated heedlessly just like human beings covet virus like many other things in life just reminds us though we have this crack of fragility inside each one of us the one days one of us will die so many different reasons but that teacher says the importance of caring even today at the funeral service told the children but this is teaching you you have to care for one another and care for your family and friends you don't know how much longer we have together there's probably many many more years the curve it reminds us occurring him in other 14 days or even less probably got many more years but care for one another and value each day and don't take days or weeks regarded as we would do beforehand now from Italy does Buddhism have an explanation on why we sometimes dream things that actually happen in real life after that the usual explanation which I give people and again as well as being a Buddhist monk a meditator I was also a member of the psychic research society where he investigates it with as much science as we could give to things like this and most times we do dream of many many things but sometimes they don't happen we forget about them but sometimes we dream of something that she does happen but it does happen that's the one we remember so is it just a natural process of learning remembering the amazing thing so is there something else going on there and I did tell the monks just a was there only about a week ago actually less than that it was a fifth of May a few days ago and the fifth of May reminded me of one of those amazing stories about this gentleman here in Perth quit many years ago now well this is the last question here so don't mind us going off for with a rose another one off was made wait I already started the story that he had a dream in the middle of the night actually no middle night was early in the morning here in Perth and his dream was he dreamt of these five angels these five like Davis angels and they each had five big pots of gold and they queued up and they gave him 25 pots of gold those his dream and then as soon as he received his last pot of gold he woke up he looked around the bedroom was morning time he couldn't see any angels in his bedroom but worse he didn't mind not seeing angels but he really missed the pots of gold and so I thought I just a dream when he went down to breakfast he found that morning his wife had made him five pieces of toast and five boiled eggs which was weird was with a number five he looked the newspaper fifth of May and just enough wondering what was going on he decided to look at the horse-racing pages here in Perth there is a horse-racing course it's named after a big one in in England called Ascot a s c-- o-- t-- v lettuce so he looked at the fifth race that afternoon and he looked down the fifth horse in the fifth race he just couldn't believe his his eyes the horse was called five angels the earth five angels was running on the fifth of May in Ascot and he just dreamt of five angels give me this huge fortune in gold if you do have these experiences you only happen once in your life so I decided to to take the afternoon off work he went to the back to keep the lucky number five $5,000 out the back a lot of money $5,000 he went to the racetrack he chose the fifth bookmaker in line and had $5,000 to win horse number five race number five five angels he knew the lucky number five couldn't go wrong and the lucky number five didn't go wrong his horse came in fifth so sometimes we do have to dream so we could misinterpret them it's a problem but sometimes that those dreams actually do work out okay and we might be short of time I can tell this other real story that's a true story this is his family I asked my mother while she was still alive and asked my auntie who actually is still alive she's in her 90s now did this really happen yeah I did and this is like your own mother and your auntie they grow up is almost like sisters and because when there was still just after the Second World War they were young and they were looking for the partners in life so my auntie and my mum they went together to this dark hello to this medium you know just for for fun just to see what was going on and this medium took one look at my auntie and her name was opal and said you are soon gonna meet your husband now if somebody says that to you you know thinking are the guys crazy what was a woman medium I'm not sure but anyway oh yeah and he said and his name will be first name Donald surname wolf Reese now Donald was not a uncommon name but war fries the surname was really uncommon so I said what do you think about when he said that was rubbish you know stupid but is that good fun for them about a week later she met this ad I asked her what happened there I met this nice guy at the dance that's what he used to do in those days and you know he asked me for a dance I said yes and so what's your name he said Donald Oh surname was wolf Reese they were made 60 years he only died about two or three years ago 30 years they were married and I kept on I suppose that happens tell ya that happened then you just say there was I was always shocked by it but they weren't at all so any we want an explanation for that I don't know except karma maybe they just how did that meet him no there whoa anyway the next one how do we observe the thinking mind which is watching an object for example anger conjuring with an unpleasant thought this is a knowing mind if you are see anger a lot of times you never don't see yourself when you get angry you always see the object of the anger it's him it's her or it's the bus so it's a government you notice that angle your attention is outside of you if you could only just know what your anger is doing to you personally that's shocking I'm angry it's his voice sure Foy's as government's for this what our society West Australia they made me work really hard I'm supposed to be Kobe Thomas was having a list then where others put aside away however and I'm not at all aware of what I'm doing to myself I'm on your where to see object to my anger outside somewhere it's one of the reasons why one of the the best ways to overcome anger is just holding the mirror of mindfulness in front of you what's it doing to you and then you find it can't sustain anger so if you really are observe the thinking mind the thinking mind is just always deceives you you know yes we think of how we've been taught what we've been told no what's actually real so so much the an example is that is when I was in the student smart little conceited young man and I learned astronomy that was astrophysics I was one of my areas my journey at the Astronomy Society as well and I knew all these names of all the stars and the constellations and stuff and when I became a monk sometimes on clear days you look up hidden in the heavens like knew the name of the stars but I couldn't see the beauty anymore and it took me years deliberately a lot of effort to actually forget the names so I can especially the place like in serpentine arriving jhana Grove and you can sit down there and watch the Milky Way another named Milky Way but what star is war and just how big they are and whether that's a galaxy there or nebulae or whatever forget about all of that and then I can see its beauty do we need to know names to see beauty I think it's much nicer not to know that's with me anyway so the thinking mind usually takes you away from reality you go into thoughts so it's nice having a mind which is silence till I give things names which means that you don't measure them you don't judge them they just are and you appreciate their joy and beauty that's nice there's a man he's supposed to look after and teach a lot of people and just many people come and see you you try not to judge anyone isn't it nice sometimes people you've seen many many times you don't know their names something I think is that really a fault in me now I think sometimes names they take away from the reality anyway so and knowing mind a mind which knows is a mile which is silent in the present moment it doesn't need to put things in words and knowing mind is in church doesn't judge enough to give a word to something that says the best mine it's peaceful beautiful enjoys beauty okay that's so been going on a long time so now y'all got into the habit ever since the Cova time they've given you a blessing instead of just an ordinary Charter the answer I'm not gonna give the usual after the Friday night talk blessing cheetor server where our mighty candle niebo torture to our new Tsar PTO we were chances [Applause] go weed NASA to Marte PO on one tire suki t-carr you go PO he watered her seal attorney chuck wood hopper charted or my auntie good night everybody oh good morning pet in what country you it and be strong stay safe and be healthy you

Channel: Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Views: 127,505

Rating: 4.8749361 out of 5

Keywords: Buddhism, Dhamma, Dharma talk, Buddha Dhamma, Ajahn Brahm, mind, health, power

Id: ilmc6aO6ElM

Length: 75min 4sec (4504 seconds)

Published: Fri May 08 2020