Free Will | Ajahn Brahm

Free Will by Ajahn Brahm

[Note: AI generated transcription – expect errors!]

Okay in this evening's talk. In a few moments when everyone's come in, who's coming in? Those people are going out. It's going out about the request, which somebody gave me last week. It was free will. We'll talk about free will tonight. So let's see what can happen when everybody is free to go out and the rules to come in. Coming up next time. Actually, somebody to start me. It was probably a couple of weeks. Another week. And next week is Sister Vayama’s Talk. The week afterwards, I'll be giving another talk. And that's supposed to be on reincarnation. So I'm going off to Singapore tonight, but I promised I will be reincarnated here in two weeks time and in time to give the talk on reincarnation. But this evening's on free will. And what does that really mean? Free will? Sometimes it's interesting. The idea of freedom is something which people just do not understand. And the word free is like the word for free speech. I gave a little vertical story sometime ago that even like free speech, I don't believe in free speech. Do you believe in free speech? I don't. I think that they should charge for it. I believe they charged and put a tax on free speech. You'd be great that people wouldn't have. Wouldn't be able to talk so much. Imagine what it'd be like in the supermarkets. People would not spend so much time on the checking counter because every time they spoke, you'd be charged. And all of your teenager teenage children, they wouldn't be able to spend so much time on the phone because they'd be charged for it. Imagine if that was taxed. Then all the people who talk so much, they'll be the ones who actually paid for the roads and the people who taught the most to politicians. Hahaha. They'd be the ones who actually pay for the things at which they spend the money on. So I think it'd be a very good idea not to have free speech, because then the silence really would be golden again. We could have silence in the world. So I really don't like the idea of free, free speech. People talk too much and we think too much as well. So should we have free thoughts? Should you really be a free thinker? Or should we charge for it? It'd be a wonderful way of actually raising funds for our Buddhist society. Every time you thought something we could charge you for, a little meter will go off in your brain. Tick tick tick tick tick. That's $10 for the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. Well, what about free will? Why should it will be free either? Because it's will is stark. The thoughts. What do I mean by free? In this evening's talk, when I'm going to say. I think if it happens, it is that freedom and will are two opposite things. So when you will, you have no freedom. And when Will stops there, you have freedom. So in the words of English language, free will is an oxymoron. What? The two words are contradictory to each other. I'll explain what that means in a few moments. I always like to sort of stir people up when I give talks, to give actually some ideas which you haven't heard before. Could he say free will? And straight away we think what that really means is every human being is allowed to actually to think, to will, whatever they want. And it's one of those ideals which we take for granted in this Western world of being good. But is it good? Is it real anyway? I've given stories before, talks before, about the nature of will and just how it isn't free at all, but to be able to understand what the world is. What is this choosing, doing, thinking, willing person or being or thing itself does even take it away from a person will in itself. What is it? And it's a. As a general principle which I learnt in science. As a scientist at Cambridge, you can't really get to know something when you're right in the middle of it. The old simile of a tadpole born in the water, raised in the water. Spent all its life in the water. How can it know what water is? It's nowhere in the world. You know what water is? When water is all around you. But one day, that tadpole grows into a frog and leaves that lake or that pond, that body of water. I want to guess outside when water is not there anymore. Only then can you truly understand what water is. How can we understand what will is when we lose all around us, when we've been willing since the time we were born? Some people are willing. Some people aren't willing. But that's not what I really meant. We're not talking about his. Oh, no. You've been having Will all the time. Have you ever known a time of conscious experience when it hasn't been there? To be able to understand what will is, you have to get to those stages. Where Will stops. And I was mentioning that part to you during the meditation. You're letting go of the control freak I was calling it. That's the will. Letting go of the doer. Allowing things to be. Not managing things. Not making things happen. Leaving them alone. Stopping. Willing. Not doing anything. Can you manage that? Can you manage just to let things go and other things to stop? Sometimes people ask me, what's the quickest way to meditation? Just don't do anything. And how many people can do that? I find it so difficult to do. Just say that. Don't do anything. No one is going to judge you. You don't have to sort of win brownie points by meditating. You're not going to be sort of given a prize for the best meditator. Just sit down and do nothing. That's so hard for a person to do. Why? It's because they're under the tyranny of their will. The will will not allow you to rest. The will is always pushing and pulling you. Making you think. Making you change. Never allowing you a moment's rest. But through this type of meditation, sometimes you can press the right buttons. You can let go until the wheel completely disappears. And those are the occasions in a very deep meditations when there is no will at all. There is no choosing. There is no doing. Only from that point when you're a little tadpole, you've grown into a frog you got outside of the lake. Then you can really understand what will is. For those of you who know this part of meditation, the will stops in what we call the second turn. That's when you're so still. You can't move. That's why when people tap you on the shoulder, you can't feel them. That's why you sit. Meditation. Sometimes for hours. He can't come out because there's no will left to take you out of that meditation experience. Now, that might sound weird to many of you, but that's actually true. That's one of the characteristics of that deep state of meditation where you're almost like a stone. Perfectly alert, blissed out of your little skull but unable to move because Will has stopped. When you come out from that stage, then of course, you are like the tadpole who's been out of the lake, gone back into the lake. He has a good idea what will truly is. So that's the first point. The only way you can know what will choosing doing controlling really is, is when you let go of control. Doing will so much. So you can't move. You're absolutely still this, isn't it? What? Well, which makes us tremble, isn't it? Will? Which makes us stop being at peace. Isn't Will which makes us run backwards and forwards. Trying to gather this. Do that. Give it to something else. Change there. Sort this out. Fix that. Isn't that what Will does? Isn't will the great tyrant like this tortured God who always makes you do this and do that? Now you're starting to see the will is quite opposite from freedom. Free will is an oxymoron. Two words coming together, which means the opposite. Strange, because we just assume is our nature to will. And by willing, we can get our happiness in the world. We can control our world. How many of you been trying to control your world since you were born? You can't even control your husband. How do you think you can control the world? You can't even control your kids. And how many headaches does that give you? You can't even control yourself. Can you? And sometimes we have all this will and will promises us that if only, we only will, wisely enough, skillfully enough, strongly enough that you can get whatever you want in the world. Some people pay thousands of dollars going to these seminars by important people who have good hairdos and fine suits. That's why I will never go to such places. Because I had gotten just a horrible hairdo and I don't know, don't wear suits. But if you have a sharp suit and a good hairdo, you can go to these places and charge thousands, thousands of dollars. And all they do is say, if you really want it, you can get it. You've got to. You've got to imagine your goals. You got to visualize your dreams. You can do it. You can make it. You can make it happen. Go for it. And the only people that get anything out of that. The organizers. I went to somebody. I was in Sydney. They'd just been to one of these big seminars, and I said, how was it? And they said it was fabulous. So really they had to sell fabrics. When I heard that they paid $7,000 for it for a weekend, several thousand dollars. My goodness. So I'm in the wrong business. I should really. Fucking be fucking like a porter. But anyway, no, you wouldn't do that because that's really sort of unsavory. And it's also. It's unsavory. Making lots of money. Would you want a lot of money for what would you do with all that money anyway? What are you up money for? People want money because I think once you've got money, then you asked three for your will. Try to to achieve whatever you want. The only reason your will hasn't managed to get you happiness yet. Because you haven't had the means yet. It's all just complicated stuff. This world business, if I will, long enough, hard enough, get the means and I can get whatever I want. Will is what promises you happiness. Control. Safety, security. But does it ever give you those things? If you if you're very wealthy, are you really happy if you have a big house? Is it big enough? I know lots of people who have big houses, but even at this moment have got the extension extensions in the council waiting for approval. How many? How many people? How big a house do you want? You can only be in one room at a time. So why not have one? Have nice houses where you have your sort of, uh, dining room and living room, sort of family room. All in one room, maybe much better. Isn't it the case that, you know, in the years gone by, we all lived in a very small houses, and the families were so big that we learned how to get on together. So we had our friendship of families all together. Now have these big houses. We have these big houses. Everyone's got their own room and TV. Everyone's got their own en suite. And your family, they're just like lodges in a hotel. You never see them. Have we lost something there by going too far? What do you want wealth for? You know, poverty can sometimes be a great blessing. You have to live together. You have to work together. They have to get on. I think it'd be wonderful if we have sort of people living together more in small houses. Make it small houses. So that way that people have to learn how to communicate with each other, how to work together, how to have harmony, how to forgive. So maybe that's one of the reasons why there's so many divorces going on. Because as kids these days, they don't learn how to get on with their sisters and brothers. We've all got our own will. We just do whatever we want? We never learn how to cooperate. Anyway, that's the side I don't. It's nothing to do with free will. But nevertheless, I just added that in. But when we have this will, you know, we think that we're going to get somewhere by willing hard enough. How many of you. You know, when something goes wrong. You think I didn't work hard enough? I didn't will will properly enough. And you. So try again next time. Trying harder, which means winning harder and never gets you anywhere. This gives you headaches all the time. Can you control the world? Now, obviously, you know, you may try to control the world, but you just say how little you can control. This all because we will these things to be somehow different. There comes a time when we actually go in an opposite direction. Instead of willing, we have no willing. We just stop this whole process of controlling and trying to change things. It's amazing what happens when you start trying to control people. Now look at the my monastery down in serpentine. I think the monks will tell you I'm not a control freak. I don't keep telling them what to do. I just encourage them. And it's amazing just how much more. You can get harmony, get progress, get success. When you don't try to control people so much, you know what it's like at work. Some of you, you get this boss who always just makes you work hard as always shouting at you, never praising, never encouraging you. This willing person who's got this great goal, they have to reach this. They've gone to these several thousand dollar weekend seminars. They should come here instead. They save money and get much better advice. But when they hear these things, what's it like living with a person like that? Can you actually work with them? Was it like under a person who's like a tyrant? After a while you just can't stand it. So if you want to go somewhere else. And you realize that when your boss instead of is like a tyrant always telling you what to do or doing, you being forceful. If you were the boss who's encouraging, who's kind, who's understanding. Then you find actually that you're not forced to work hard for such a person. You find you want to work hard for such a person. The person encourages you, inspires you. They're a good person. They're trying hard. They're kind to me. I want to be kind to them. That's certainly the way that I've run the monastery down at serpentine. By being kind to my monks. They are kind back to me. It's called the law of karma. Now this is an example. If you're a tyrant, if you're mean to others, others will be mean to you. It isn't a lot of will being mean to yourself. Willing yourself so hard. I could do this. I've got to do that. Come on. Get your act together. Me? Instead, can we be kind to ourselves? This is what I call that tyrant inside each one of us. That very, very hard will which pushes us. And unfortunately, our cultures say, yeah, we've got to sort of create that world. That strength of will be a strong willed person. Then you succeed in life. What do you really succeeding? Are you really happy when you have a strong will? Or is that you're just carrying a tyrant around in your brain all the time, always, never giving you a moment's peace. So you've got to work harder. You got to make more money. You've got to get on in your company. You've got to get on in your monastery. My goodness, you've been eight years as a monk. You're not the abbot yet. But whatever it is. Sure he can't. We sort of start with that business and just be kind instead. Because when we stop the will. And instead we can have like the kindness as well, the kindness instead. So what is kindness? What is loving kindness? You've heard me say this before. So beautiful description of what love truly is. The door of my heart is open to you. No matter who you ever are, no matter what you do. My own father's, uh, description of loving kindness. That door of my heart is open to you. No matter who you are, no matter what you've ever done. Come in. Now, is there any will involved in that? How is it? An ending of will? A freedom of will? Freedom rather from will. I know certainly my father was not a willful person. He was the one who taught me that. And he was quite happy no matter what I did in life. In fact, you know, when I remember this story, I remember when that I started to do well at school. And he went to one of these parent teachers nights. And I think that was the first time that the teacher said to him how what I was doing, and said I would probably go to university. And my father got very upset. And apparently I heard the next day from my fellow classmates that he almost had a fight with my teacher. My father didn't want me to go to university. Simply because he thought that would take me away from him. He was a simple working class man and he thought half his son goes to university. He will lose me as a friend. Of course, it was just a misunderstanding of what happens when you go to university for fame, for working class person. It was if I was going to another echelon which he could never reach. He soon changed his mind and was very happy. But it was interesting, just sort of the way these things actually work. He wasn't a willful person. He would allow me to do things. You give me that freedom. He was not a tyrant because he wasn't a tyrant, because he sort of cared for me so much. My response was, I really wanted to do the very best for such a man. You always reach up. To live up to such accept and such trust that love is the same in a business. If as a boss, the boss is caring and kind for you, know the people underneath them. For the workers, if their understanding caring, you've got a job to do. But now if you're too ill, then don't do it today. Then people would work harder. You get much more out of the job. Actually, I should have brought this along today if I knew I was going to save. I'll never really understand what I'm going to say before I say it, but on my, uh, wall by my desk, there was a little article which came from a business journal of, uh, United Kingdom, where particular business had won a prize. For productivity because it had banned overtime. He said to workers, you have to go home to your families at a certain time. Now, you can't sort of keep on doing this over time. So you neglect your private life, you neglect your health. You neglect your recreation. And so this company, they insisted everybody go home on time. No overtime. And it is so many other things that you to care for the company that its staff turnover. Sweat so far down that people stayed in their jobs for year after year after year. So all this retraining of staff, they didn't have to spend any money on that. The staff really cared for company which cared for them and their profits. Their productivity went up so much. It won a business award in the UK as an example of how kindness and caring actually work for an economic concern, a company of business. And that sort of impressed me, because that's actually what happens not just with a company, not just with a monetary, but with ourselves. We should care for ourselves more. Instead of being so willful. To buy. Well, for me, I shouldn't have done this. That's being willing now. Willing to be better, willing to do this. Sort of the tired inside of you, which is always telling you what to do. Can we have this even a moment's peace from that talent? Otherwise there will be moving you, willing you to do this and that from the time you were born to the time you would die. Come on. Me do well. You got to pass your exams when you're young. Come on, do well. Get a nice partner. Get a pretty one. Get a nice sort of rich husband. Come on, do well at school. Your job. Come on. Sort of do well in your career. Come on. Try harder to get a good house. Come on. Try hard to be successful. Come on. Try harder to meditate when you come to a temple. Come on. Try harder to go to heaven after you die. Always willing ourselves to try to live up to something. I mean, always moving, being pushed. Do you ever find or feel inside you? Always being pushed around? You never being accepted, you never being had. This feeling of freedom just to be who you are. If you understand how weld and freedom are two opposites. Every now and again. We have to stop the journey. We have to just stop and rest. Every now and again, we have to turn off the engine of our car. The engine of our car is, well, what drives us through life. You've always been driven through life by our will. Whenever. Can we have any rest, any peace? It's wonderful if we can just stop winning for a while. And to stop. Trouble is that all the time we sort of the only time when we say stop willing, we try and will ourselves to stop willing. And of course, that's not stopping at all. That's more willing. And it's the same with this opposite of willing. You probably have all figured it out by now. The opposite of will is letting go. And this is one of the hardest things to do, to do nothing, he said, come on, do nothing. That's more doing this, more doing that. Go. Come on, let go, let go, let go, let go. That's not letting go. That's making yourself let go. That's willing yourself to let go. For those of you who've been meditating a while. Can you understand what your mistake is? You're letting go of the wrong thing. You should be letting go of the will. I will to stop. So you allow the world just to be you, not willing it to be any different. Through wisdom, you understanding just how everything in this world has its place. I said this last week, but I've been saying this for many times in my monastery. I told it to just one of the characters this morning. You look at our monastery and I pointed out a dead tree. So don't cut that down, because that's the place where the. The bird's nest. The dead trees in a monastery are just so important. So the sick trees. So the old trees. So the young trees. Every tree in the forest has its place. So why do we want to change it? Every person in a world has a place. So why do we want to change things? You are perfect as you are. Why do you want to change things? Who will? We always want to be different. We always want to be better. We always think we want. We can somehow achieve something more. But when we actually stop. Especially in our spiritual life, we stop all those within business. Only then can we accept ourselves as we are. Only then can we have some rest. Only then can we ever find any peace. Otherwise, if you cultivate will. Again and again and again and again and again, you find you'll never have any peace in your life. Never have any satisfaction. Never have a place where you can truly rest. Unfortunately, this thing called Will is so conditioned into us, it's very hard to stop. It's as if this thing just has a mind of its own. And this is actually it does have a mind of its own. This is what we call ourselves. Our being me. So often we think it's me who does this. Really? That's why I like to tell a couple of stories, just to prove that it's not you at all. You can let go of Willy. Will you realize it's nothing to do with you? It's been put in there by somebody else. Those stories I have about, because I always thought that I was the one who was doing the winning. And I always thought in a way that most people understand free will. That you can choose to do whatever you want. I thought this was a free society until I started learning some basic psychology. And you understand that this thing, which you call choice and, well, it doesn't come from you at all. His conditioned. You've all been brainwashed. One of the first times I realized this. When I was a young man. How many young people want to be rebels? I decided to be a rebel. And I got my green velvet trousers. Even though my mother didn't like that at all. A. This was in the late 60s and I was so proud of my green velvet trousers. I was the only one who had been velvet trousers. I thought. Until I went to one of these rock concerts. These rock festivals were thousands of people came to listen to these rock bands. And that was the time I found 10,000 other people with green velvet trousers. And I wasn't big an individual at all. I was just wearing another uniform. It's called fashion. Who are they? Do you wear the clothes you wear? Fashion. Why do you choose those things? Why is your hairstyle like it is? Did you freely choose to have your hair that particular way? Did you freely choose to wear those particular clothes, or were you just brainwashed by the fashion industry to wear those things? Look at what people have, these designer clothes. You know, it's Gucci sort of, uh, robes. Well, well, well versus gowns. I sometimes see them in the newspapers and in some of those fashion shows, and they look really weird, as if, like, crazy people's clothes. But people actually buy out and they, they pay immense amount of money for those things. What do you do that for so many because your brain was no one in the same mind would actually buy those sorts of things. Does it not, in a sane mind, be completely controlled by the fashion industry, just as you have. Why is it when you go to a supermarket you buy that particular brand of muesli? Because you've seen it being advertised. The second thing which I remembered is the way I've been brainwashed. You've heard this story before, but it's actually a very funny story. I saw this advertisement. I remember this very clearly when I was a young man of Saint Bruno. Tobacco. And in this particular advertisement on the TV, this ordinary looking man wasn't particularly beautiful. Not particularly strong or big or handsome. This beautiful. This ordinary man started smoking some Saint Puno tobacco in his pipe. And as he lit the pipe, the aroma sort of started spreading. This amazingly beautiful girl working in a bank to smelled it was completely upstairs, jumped over the counter and started following him. And then another person from the newsagent, this beautiful young girl, also completely obsessed, jumped over her counter, followed him in about a few seconds. Only a few seconds in. Advertisement. This ordinary man was being followed by these amazingly beautiful girls because Sabrina tobacco was like that. So why don't you smoke it? You become incredibly attractive. That was what? That was what the advert said. It's actually stupid, isn't it? I mean, who could believe that I did? I got some some tobacco. Unfortunately, it didn't work for me. I was followed by beautiful women who jumped over counters, stopped whatever they were doing because I. But you just. You do that. How do we actually buy these products? Simply because of what's been shown on the TV? And we really think we're in control. We really think that our will, the reason why we chose that. Was out of her own free choice, and that starts to make her very. It makes it very spooky. What you choose to do. How much actually comes from you and how much has been brainwashed into you? I've been told that many of the monks of my monastery start talking like me. I think that's what happened. Because you brainwashed all the monks. And I thought if I had stuck and when I was last in Singapore, I'm just going back there again. We're having a conference over there in a week or two. And just to liven things up there, there's this fellow Singapore who's, um, he's a stand up comedian and he's also a ventriloquist. He's a juggler. And he was going to do that bit of entertainment, this Buddhist conference. I said, hey, ventriloquists, why do you get like, a little dummy just like me and call it sort of, you know, little bum or something? And he said, yeah, that's a good idea. You might do it. It's been very interesting to get a ventriloquist dummy just like me, but really, we've got about how many months we've got that monastery in 20 months just like this. You can get this a lot of times. Isn't it the case? We sort of imitate each other? Try to imitate each other. It's because they're actually our will. Where does actually come from? We think we're in control. A lot of times we are not. Our will is conditioned into us by our society. By our parents. By our religion. That's why you can't really blame anybody. They choose to do that because that's all they've heard. A lot of our will is completely conditioned. I another story about Will, which again really shook me was when as a, as a, uh, college student, I went to this, uh. Demonstration by hypnotist who would get his whole crowd and a whole group of students. I was one of them. I tried to see if I was a hypnotic subject. He said, no, I wasn't. I was very happy afterwards when I found out what happened to somebody who was a hypnotic subject, because they hypnotized his student completely in front of all the people watching. This hypnotist said. Time. Later on, I'm going to give you a suggestion. When I touch my right ear, you are going to stand out and sing. The national anthem is a British national anthem, God Save the Queen. And then he caved in the post. And what it suggests, the way he came, he took him out of hypnosis. But before he did, he said, uh, you won't remember anything, which I just told you. But you will remember when I touched my ear to stand up and sing the British national anthem. And when he took this young student out of hypnosis, he sent him back to his chair. And of course, we'd all seen what was happening. And just like every other student in that lecture, I couldn't wait. And he couldn't. So that sort of hypnotists actually touched his ear. Was waiting for he came close a few times. So it's sort of just widening us out. But then he actually touched his ear. And as soon as he touched his right ear, this student in the middle of the lecture, in the lecture hall of maybe 100 students, he stood up and in a loud voice said, God save the Queen. And everyone else burst out laughing, but he wouldn't stop. It just carried on till the end. And is so embarrassing. And we asked him afterwards, so he's asked, why did you do that? And he gave a cogent reason. To him. He thought he'd freely chose to see the British national anthem in the middle of a lecture. To us. He was quite clear. He'd been completely conditioned. When we saw that, we realised the things which I do. Are they really coming from me, or are they just conditioned by my parents, by my friends, by my society? When you actually look deeply into it, it is all completely conditioned. You have been controlled by your society. By your upbringing. By your conditioning. So we think. Try to understand. But why don't you understand? Why you want to know what you want? You know what's going on. You know just how this mind is completely subjective conditioning. At least you can condition it in a good way. You can condition you in a good way by coming to the Buddhist Society of West Australia on Friday afternoon or Friday evening instead of watching the TV. It's much cheaper. You don't have to buy so much. But more than that, once you understand just how the mind is conditioned, you can work with those conditionings. What we call it in my monastery is learning how to program yourself, program mindfulness, because sometimes people actually come along and they say, I've got these problems in their lives. Sometimes, for example, they're angry people, so I can't stop getting angry. What should I do? I say, look, that anger is conditioned. You can recondition yourself. But how you program mindfulness is that when you're not feeling angry, when you're feeling relaxed. You sit down and you make resolutions to yourself. You say I. When this trigger happens, you find out this person or this event and maybe just because you get tired, or maybe when you come home after a busy day at work and you get angry at your wife or your husband or your kids or whatever, find out the trigger. Find out your situation. And when you're far away from that situation, when you relax. Tell yourself, look, when I come home, I would not get angry at my wife. When I come home, I will not get angry at my wife. When I come home, I will not get angry with my wife. You repeat it to yourself 2 or 3 times. That's what I do not. I've got a wife for this other situations and I'm a very good man. For another, this is just an example. You made that resolution to yourself and it's amazing just how it works. Now you find that you've made that resolution to yourself. You've actually programmed your mind, you've brainwashed yourself, you conditioned yourself like self-hypnosis. And then you come home from work, the same old situation you're about to follow, the same obsessive habits, and you're about to get angry and something comes up in your mind says, no, I won't. And after a while you realize that that's come up because you put that conditioning in there. You've deliberately reconditioned your mind. It's amazing how powerful that is. If you don't believe me, try this experiment tonight. This is a very common meditation experiment. When you go to sleep tonight, whatever time you want to get up in the morning. So it's at 8:00. Put your alarm clock to 8:05. Just in case, so you don't have to worry about anything. 8:05. If this doesn't work great, you get an extra five minutes sleep. Put your alarm clock at 8:05. And then before you go to sleep, when it's lying down in your bed, before you close your eyes and say, I will wake up at 8:00 sharp. I will wake up at 8:00 sharp. I'll wake up at 8:00 sharp. So let yourself three times as carefully as you can. So you really listening to yourself? It's amazing. Just you will wake up at 8:00 with 1 or 2 minutes out of sight without any alarm. You've conditioned your mind to wake up at a certain time. The first time I did. That was my first meditation retreat when I was 1819 year old student. I couldn't believe just how well it worked. Now I understand why it works. You're actually programming your mind at that particular time. This is what you're going to do. That's a great way for overcoming obsessions. If anyone has like an obsession with alcohol, they're an alcoholic. They can actually do that with no away from the beer. You tell yourself, I will not know when I see that bottle of alcohol in those dangerous situations, you program yourself. When I see that bottle of alcohol, I will not take it up. I will not pick it up. I will not pick it up. The programmer into your mind. You can recondition yourself to change. Maybe it takes a bit of a while before you can recondition yourself. It's like a person trailing in sport. Now the pivotal trading spot. You watch them in their, uh, training, like on tennis. They keep on just doing the same action over and over and over and over again until they condition themselves. That's how they react when a ball is like that, because in the actual game, things go so fast. You haven't got time to think in real life because it flows so fast. We just act. Out of our conditioning. How we've been trained. How we've been brainwashed. And this is a way we recondition ourselves when we understand where all this comes from. It's amazing what we can do. Even in a meditation sometimes that the goal of a teacher. I teach these things again and again and again and again. And I'm brainwashing you. I admit that you've kept brainwashed every Friday you come here. And what happens is you go home, you're about to get angry. Stomach comes up right down, Brown said. What situation? Williams said. And it stops you. And it changes you for the better. So this is actually how this all works. This is actually how you can actually because no you know, what will is you know where it comes from. You can actually work with your will. You can actually change it. So obsessive or negative choices. Sort of destructive will can be altered. You just tell yourself what to do. You know why you tell yourself what to do. Because I told you what to do. I brainwashed you to change from taking alcohol break to chains to getting angry. Brainwashed into being more kind. Even brainwashed you to be more generous. There's an old story I can't resist telling. This is a brainwashing hypnosis story. I tried to tell this as our last Katrina ceremony, but I was there and he stopped me. But I'm going to go for it this time. That's right. For those of you remember that I didn't know the punch line. There was this poor priest, and his poor priest is only a young fellow, and he didn't do very good sermons, so it didn't get much on his collection plate. And so because of that, he sort of was fighting a very, very hard to make ends meet. So he went to see a superior bishop. And the bishop said, look, the same thing happened to me when I started out, you know, being a priest, very hard to actually to get people inspired, hardly got anything. So what I did, I tried hypnosis. Said. One Sunday afternoon, he said I turned up the temperature in the room. I gave a very boring sermon in a monotone. When people are about to fall asleep. I cut out my watch, do it backwards and forwards, backwards and forwards. And when everyone was hypnotized, I gave them the suggestion. Only $10 notes. No fives, no coins. 20 years old to 50 year old Isaac as well. For no coins? No five months. He said it well to treat. And so the priest said, I can't do that. So now, of course you can. Is for God. He. It's like, here's finance for the Buddha is for good karma. So you all need to make good karma, so it's okay to brainwash you. Sputnik. So he tried it out the next Sunday. He turned and noticed how the temperatures up in this room this evening. He said the temperature up. He gave a very boring but no dose like accuracy. I'm a good Mac. I don't brainwash it. You have a very boring sermon. And also the monotone. When everyone was about to fall asleep, he got his watch out. Powers and forwards. Powers and forwards. Until they were all hypnotized. Then he said $10, $20, $50, $100. No fives, no coins on the collection plate. And it were to treat when the collection plate went out. It was full of, you know, $10, $20, $50 notes. This is really good. So I decided I wouldn't do it next week otherwise. As soon as I see him out, you know, because, you know, people are smart. So I waited for a few weeks until they needed some more money and then again, turn the temperature up on a Sunday afternoon before they went to church. Came a very boring sermon in a monotone. And then when they're about to fall asleep, he got his watch out again. I was just about to say only $10 when he dropped his watch. You just said shit. Each. And you know what happened next. This is why we have our conditioning. Bracket, which is what happened. That's why we've never tried that trick here. I. Because it wasn't their fault. It wasn't their free will. They were forced to do that because. Now do you understand what freewill truly is? It's just so often that we're a sort of controlled. And this is sometimes this happens in a, in a partnership. Just how we just try to, to control each other so that we make our husband to follow our will, we make our wife follow our will. Is that really good relationship? Those of you being in such relationships. Are they pleasant? Wouldn't it be more lovely to have even a relationship of real freedom? Freedom from control. This is actually why that I've made a long big point over the last few years here, talking about freedom and desires and to see how the two are completely opposite. We talk now about the two types of freedom in the world. The freedom of desires is what people understand as free will. So that you can do whatever you want, whenever you want it, however you like it. You notice this as our society has been growing over the last few centuries, giving people the power, the wealth, the means to fulfill whatever desire you want. Steven, whatever movie you want to listen to, you can go on on Sky TV, you can get DVDs. You don't even need to go to the go to the movie theater anymore. Whatever suit you want. You got so many restaurants that you don't even need to go out. You can ring out for home delivery. Whatever Dharma talk you want. We got these MP3 CDs with hundreds of Dharma talks. I didn't even need to come to the center. I can listen to all this on the internet. Anything you want. It's getting more and more and more. Our society is called the Free World by Mr. Bush because, sir, Mr. Howard as well, and Mr. Blair, because I think this is the freedom of desires. But I ask you, how many of you really feel free? You are more wealthy than your parents. You got more ability to come and go to be entertained than the people who came before you. But do you feel real free? It's a strange thing that if you ask a person in our modern world, they don't feel free at all. And you come to our monastery. Floating on a monastery. You can't do this. You can't do that. You can't do anything else. This is what I can't do. Monastery. It's all band power to TV. You can't watch movies, you can't listen to the radio, you can't sing songs, you can't play soccer. You suddenly think you can't even eat in the afternoon. You can't choose what you want to eat. I. So many things you can't do. And you think many people think that it must be terrible living in a monastery? All those rules. You must feel so, so confined. Like being in a prison. What do you guys do that for? I've never felt so free in my life since becoming a monk. All these rules which I have to keep the Sophie. So this is why we got lots of people coming to our monastery. The ABC came there the last, uh, uh, year last night. And so I said, no, I'm doing a program for Negus, I think. Was it today, tonight or something on Negus Tonight on July 13th, following a young man coming into our monastery. Asking nicely. They were quite surprised. Again, they thought, your monastery is amazing. People are laughing. They're telling jokes. I thought it was supposed to be a serious place. But you know me. I'm honestly not serious. Price is a free price. We become monks for fun. Me too. The fact that I'm a good time, monk. I keep telling people, if you want a good time, what should you do? Be good, smart, safe, want a good time and be good. But sometimes people say, that's really crazy. The only way you can have fun is to be naughty. If this isn't the case, people think naughty people are the most fun. They don't. You keep all these rules. You're confined. People think that's what it looks like on the outside. But from the inside you feel so free. And it took me a while to understand this. And so I couldn't disturb the two types of freedom. The first is the freedom of desires, where you could do whatever you want. There are no rules. It's called the freedom of desires. The second type of freedom. Well, we must get into this called a freedom from desires. There's no desires left. There's no will to keep pushing you and pulling you. The desire to be rich, the desire to be well liked, the desire to be successful, even the desire to be healthy. Well, if you're healthy, that's fine. If you're sick, that's part of life. I think more with that. Free from desires. Imagine that type of freedom. Where you want for nothing, but you're completely content. Whatever comes, fine. If it doesn't come, fine. You're free from desires. Where Will has stopped. You enjoying your life rather than always trying to control it. You neither try to control yourself nor are you trying to control anybody else. Can you understand what that freedom is? Sometimes I'm going to the airport tonight to catch a plane. Sometimes I see the plane is being delayed. People get so upset and angry. Why are you getting angry for? Does that make the plane go on time? You're just making yourself suffer. People complain when things go wrong because they control freaks. They want to control the world. They don't want planes to to not go on time. They don't want the traffic to sort of be so terrible. They don't don't want their children to not always become top of the class. We're so great control freaks. They want to control the world. Make sure to control your children. You want to control your partner. You want to control yourself. You want to control your body. I want to live a long time. I don't want to be sick. How many of you can do that? In the end, there's only one freedom. The freedom from desires. When you can love a partner and say, the door of my heart is open to no matter what you do or where you go. My life gives you freedom. I don't control you anymore. When you tell your kids, no matter what you do in your life. The door of my house will always be open to you. Or my father said to me, it's complete freeing me. I didn't have to work hard to have his love. His love was a given. It will always be there, no matter what I did. He gave me freedom. I respected that so much, and I worked so hard to try to live up to hip. This is what happens if you give your partner that type of freedom. This is what happens to you. If you give yourself that degree of freedom. But all my hearts open to me. No matter who I am, no matter what I ever do. No matter what. I've started life. Freedom from control. Like I said, in that forest, every tree is so important. Every experience in your life was absolutely necessary for you. Always wonderful things. Hard at the time. Disgusting, but so useful. He wouldn't be who you are without this. When you understand that, you understand how you can love yourself. You don't control anything. If you were gonna give up control of something. But one thing in the world. Give up control of yourself. Allow yourself to be let go. Be at peace. Have a bit of kindness to yourself, and then you have freed yourself from will. Create yourself from the tyrant. Freed yourself from craving. Freed yourself enough. To be completely liberated. To be enlightened. Hence I know acts of the enlightened ones. The Buddha said he was craving, which leads to suffering. If you understand the connection between craving and will. Who is moving or is going, seeking out for something. Grasping onto something. Moving over here. Chasing over there. When will there be an end to your journey? Will you ever have enough to stop? Only when you give up craving, you allow the craving driven will to cease. So you allow yourself to be. You allow the world to be. You want our life to be. As it is, with its sickness. With its deaths. With his heat. With his cold. How do you then? Can you find real peace? This is the end of will. Now put aside from delusion comes will the Sankara karma formations. From that comes the rebirth consciousness. It's called dependent origination. The first three filters through wisdom, whence we see things as they truly are. There the karma formations will stops through it, stopping. There is no more rebirth. Samsara has been ended. I added that in there just to make this talk a little bit crazy. That's dependent origination. First three factors. You. So there we go. That's the talk this evening on free Will. I hope you've all been conditioned or brainwashed well enough by this evening's talk. And I forgot to get my clock out to get the donations, but never mind. I saw, I saw that, uh, president. So I'll be able to pick that one up. So thanks again for coming. So are there any questions about this evening's talk about freewill, or rather, the freedom from you? Yes. I got a question. Yeah. Good. How do you work against the virus and you make peace with the version? So like aversion is just one of these like clouds which come up into your mind. Trouble is what most people do like they have aversion. Some of them don't, but they get averse to aversion. So guilt is like double aversion. It's like we get guilty. We feel guilty about being guilty. I suppose to be a mark. I'm not supposed to feel guilty. So I feel guilty about being guilty. We have suffering. We don't want to have suffering. That's called double suffering. With such complicated people that we actually add so much just to the normal things of the mind to go version. Make peace with of us. A version that all my hearts open to you. Come in. What you do then is actually you undermine a version of it, cutting off its fuel supply. It is burns out very quickly because when you make peace with a version. Then after a while, a version cannot last. It cannot live there. He lives at peace with himself. So. Her version has come up in your mind because of old karma, the way you've been thinking in the past, the way you use your mind in the past. There it is. Here it is a version. Now, what am I going to do with it? You make peace with that. If you make peace with the version, the making. Peace is the karma of the present. What are you doing with this? Then you find by making peace in the moment, making good karma. Now the future must be good karma, good results. You're making peace in your mind. What you experience in the world is a result of the past. How are you experiencing it? Is how you're making your future. If you're averse to your version, her version carries up. If you're a piece with a version, then peace is what grows in the future. That. Okay. So if I was. Yes. Yeah, that's called Janus. This is a deep meditation states this is how you can experience these things. These are not just talk, but you really let go. When you stop all this wedding business. You know that a great story about that little novice. I love telling this story, a little novice in that and Charles Monastery many, many years ago, I didn't I was giving this long sermon many, many hours. This little novice kept on thinking, when is that going to stop? When is your adventure going to stop? Wedding? When is Argentina gonna stop? He went on for about 2 or 3 hours like that. Until eventually the novice thought, when am I going to stop? And then I was stopped. And he clearly came out of his meditation many hours later. Attention! All the monks had left the hall a long time ago. The first time in his life he got into the deep meditations where everything stopped. And such. We have deep, deep channel experience and even if a novice could do that, he just stopped all this winning business. He let go. Let it be. Loving kindness. So do all my heart services. You're not doing anything. You're accepting. You're being. Nair, the conditioning starts to end. So it's not that hard to do. All you need to do is nothing. Okay. I think this is so hot. So whenever you're meditating, you find it's harder than I think. Ask yourself why? Because, Will. There's always something that moves the mind. You have thought counts. I should do this. I should do that. That's called Will. And even when you've got nothing to do, I shall be doing something that's real again. And it's all conditioned. And I try my hardest to unconditioned you. Or rather brainwashes. So you see things a different way. So you can really let go and you can loose be free. So it's not this purse, this side. You're always pushing. Your pulling. You had your bum. You should give a better talk. I probably should stop now. It's from this past night at umbra. We should do this, I don't care. I'll just be free, okay? I should really stop now. Okay. Uh, sorry it's a bit late, but. Come on. Yes, I love him. Lawrence, can we always ask good questions? He'll being content. Exactly. Being content is how you do nothing. And after all, I mean, why do you strive so much? Because you want contentment. You want peace. You say, once I've got my beautiful house in the country, then I'll be content. Once I paid off my mortgage, then I'll be content. Once my children have passed their exams, then I'll be content. This. This is what desire does. It always puts off content. Haven't you got enough already? Hands up. Most people have got enough. Come on, monks, be. Hands up! Whenever can you retire? When I retired at 23. Got no superannuation, only superannuation. I don't believe a word of Mr. Costello. Greater contentment. What more do you want? This content. That's actually caught up with real discontent as to what generates will. When we're discontent, we're willing to do something. When your content really contains all the will ends. You don't need much to be content if you don't need anything at all. You've already got enough. To be absolutely content. I hope you're content because that's all you're getting. Look. Okay. Come on, let's have some happiness now. Mr. president, thank you very much.