Having Your Cake | Ajahn Brahm

Having Your Cake

by Ajahn Brahm

[Note: AI generated transcription – expect errors!]

Now, today that just before I came in here. Uh, a secretary told me that we've. I got two emails asking for subjects for this evening's talk. And those two emails, one said, talk about experience. And I thought he probably meant most of men. There's actually a rock band called experience with Jimi Hendrix when I was young. Perhaps they want me to talk about that this evening. And so not quite sure exactly what they meant by experience, but part of the talks can be on experience and the other part of the talk. They gave me a quote about, um, I was saying, how can you have your cake and eat it? Oh, that's going to be testing out today about how to combine those two subjects into one. Talk about Buddhism, about Dharma. The first part is very much easier because the experience is something which is much more powerful and has always been central to the Buddha's teachings, as I've taught many, many times that, uh, in Buddhism we really start to put aside all the theories, even the stuff which you read about in the book societies even that is only looked upon as being a guideline to what's really true. We look upon those things as signposts, which point to some meaning inside of ourselves. They're very useful, but we can't actually just stop at teachings. Even what you hear from a monk should not always be taken to be absolute truth. So you understand that if one a monk said you should not believe so. People say, I jumped up and told us that we should not believe the monks. And you believe me again. And another point too. So we're pointing to something which is sometimes that you believe people just too easily. Even though the person speaking might be absolutely correct, we sometimes might misunderstand them, get the wrong idea. Sometimes what they say is not really what you hear. Very often this happens in ordinary life as well as listening to a talk like this. Actually, something changes from what comes out of my mouth and to by the time it gets into your ears, it's all changed around. It's not the same thing. I've done that many times when I said something and people actually completely misunderstood what I meant. I, for example, is an old story from this is from Nasreddin and the Sufi tradition of uh, and that's reading had a friend who had a young man and they used to be in the the salt trade. They used to take salt from one place to another in donkeys on donkey backs, whenever they were crossing. One of these rivers they had is very narrow bridges, you know, these, uh, rope bridges. And they're only that that narrow that only one donkey could go across them at a time. And this fell on those road and saw this man, or rather, the man's son, taken one of the donkeys across, and the donkey was leading to the left. And so the man shouted out to his son, because he would read any more to the left would fall in. He said, push it to the left. Push it to the left. Whenever it's moving to the right. The reading would say push it to the right, push it to the right. And as we just said, what do you say that for? So look, he's a teenager. If you say push it to the left, I know, push it to the right. If I say push it to the right, he'll push it to the left. So if it's dealing to the left, I always tell him to push it to the left, because that makes a lot of sense. But then one day, the teenager was taking the donkey across the road and it was leaning to the right. And the father said, push it to the right. And the teenager did, and it fell in and lost all the saw and the donkey as well. What did that for? He said, I've grown up now. Meaning. Though sometimes even the information we give depends. You know, when you grow up, you don't have to sort of disobey your parents anymore. The point is that sometimes even the advice we sometimes misunderstand or we take, you know, we don't really understand what the true instructions are. So even listen to somebody else. Sometimes we get the wrong impression. So a lot of times we have to find out our experience and this experience which becomes one's teacher. Very often I taught people when they say, where can I learn more about the teachings? Where can I really read the teachings of the Buddha? And I say, all you need to do is to read your own heart and you find all the teachings in there. And for anybody who wants to really challenge me on this, there's actually a teaching, a suitor of the Buddha saying of the Buddha where he said that all the teachings of the Buddha, rather the beginning and the end of the world, can all be found inside your own body and mind. Very powerful teachings can all be found inside your own body and mind. This is actually why we always rely upon experience in Buddhism. But we have to be careful because everyone says they rely upon experience. But sometimes we get it wrong. And it's interesting to see why we get it wrong. But before I go on to why we get things wrong, why our experience is not truthful to the reality. I also mentioned just a little bit more about like beliefs, because when we're believing we're taking what somebody else says, we're taking what the book says and is very one very famous teaching in Buddhism, which, you know, many people celebrate, called the Kalamazoo, to where the Buddha actually went to this group of people called the Kalamazoo surname of a village. So just the villages in that particular town and these people that had so many other teachers coming through, but they got a bit bored, they got a bit confused. Who's wrong and who's wrong? Now you say you're right and somebody else says they're right and somebody else says you're wrong. I'm the only person who's right. How can we know? And that's actually like our present day. And we have so many different religions, so many different truths and philosophies are in the supermarket of religion. So why come here? Why not go down to the temple next door to the church or go to anything? Why? And of course. And what the Buddha actually said. Look, don't go and believe anybody. Don't go and believe me. Test it out and use your experience for a guide, because experience is the most important. But you've got to be careful with your experience because sometimes even experience can lie. Well, we may know by experience. Lying as we can miss here. We can miss. See, we can get things wrong. Even though we think we know. We're just making assumption, which really isn't true. I gave a talk about that a couple of weeks ago about assumptions and just how, you know, we we believe in something and it doesn't actually turn out to be true. Like, for example, some of my expectations about myself, I'm not sure. Did I tell the story recently about the I told the story, I think, in a meditation retreat which I gave in North Perth, but they don't tell the story about the the the monk who wasn't afraid of tigers. Was that in the retreat? I think you want to retreat. But I don't think I told you here. And actually shows how we can get things wrong. This is actually an old Thai forest story from the Thai Forest monks, because the one who told me this was the monk called again, John Perry, just before he died. He told me this story because I went to visit him in his remote monastery in the northeast of Thailand, and I'd only been there that night. I was just going to pay respects. And in a monastery close by, a big wild elephant had come into the monastery. And the so-called Alpha. This monastery was so scared, he actually jumped out of his window, which was about 2 or 3m above the ground, because the elephants can actually destroy a heart very easily. And the elephants in Thailand are quite dangerous sometimes. Actually, there was one friend of mine who was sitting meditation, and the elephant put the trunk around him and actually moved him. I think he was in Norway and unfortunately he got quite badly injured. So the elephants were weren't all that sort of a tender with a monk. So the elephants can be quite dangerous. And so he turned to me and said, do you want to go to that monastery and see the elephants? I said, yeah, I'll go there. And you just laughed and said, are you afraid of elephants? I said, no. But the point was, I was just making the assumption. Who knows whether they're in afraid of elephants or not? And that's why they told this story. He told me the story of the monk who wasn't afraid of tigers. This monk, who was on wandering in part of Thailand, came to a certain village in the afternoon. Usually you actually check in with the heading of the village. Now before you actually go and stay there, because, you know, the head will tell you if there's any dangers there. And also, you'd have to tell the village to expect the monk for alms, and the following morning for the meal, the villagers would be very happy to give you something to eat, but they wanted to know you were coming first. So you checked in with the headman of the village late one afternoon and said he was staying in the jungle close by, and they had said, oh, you better be very careful. There's a very dangerous tiger in this vicinity. Who's eaten many water buffaloes and also many children. And I'm sure he would like a nice fat monk like you or something like that. But the man said, I am a forest monk. I'm a tough dude. I'm not afraid of tigers. Bring them on. Yeah. Said the headman. Yeah. Said the monk. And so, with some other villagers, they took this monk. Through a path which went into the jungle where the tiger track crossed that path. Now, in the jungles, it's very clear to know where the tiger tracks are. They make their own little roads to the jungles. And this was a big and dangerous tiger. Are you sure? Said the headman. Yeah, said the monk. So they put his, uh, mosquito net umbrella really close by to the tiger trail. And then they left him alone all night to meditate next to the trail of this monkey King. Tiger. Yeah. Now months of our tradition. When we meditate, we don't always just meditate just on the breath. One of the famous meditation techniques in our tradition is actually to use mantras, mantras, or group of words, which we use to try and hold our attention onto the breath. And one of the most common is a mantra called budo, like the Buddha, where you breathe in, you say to yourself, but as you breathe out, I'll put I'll put her right there. And that's what this monk was doing, was doing a mantra, butoh, along with the breath. And as you get quiet, the breath becomes very soft and very smooth. And the monk was just sitting there, just doing his little mantra with the breath pulled. Oh. Oh. Tall. So peaceful. So calm. But late into the night. Until he heard a sound. There was a sound that the jungle animals, because that's the time when the jungle animals start to move around. And it was quite automatic. He didn't plan this, but he noticed he was trying to put whole, put whole foods. And as the sound came closer, he realized that this was quite a large jungle animal. Bhutto. Bhutto. Bhutto. And so he decided to open his eyes. And as he opened his eyes, he saw this huge tiger coming in his direction. And at that, his mantra changed. Along with a breath, he found himself saying. Tyger, tyger tyger, tyger. And. And as it came closer, according to the tale which I was told, he didn't know how it happened. But in a moment he had dived out from under the native mosquito net and was running away. He forgot all of his mindfulness except for one thing his mantra. Tyger, Tyger Tyger Tyger. As they went around for safety to the village. Now it's against the rules for monks to run. And you know why? Because the roads beware. Are not made to run in. They're only held together just by a few clever folds. Or just a few neat tucks here and there. And what happens when you run with these robes? First of all, they come loose. Then bits of robe tend to trail behind, and then eventually the whole robe trails a long way behind. And by the time this man came into this village, doing his mantra at the top of his voice. Tyger, tyger tyger, tyger. He exposed some naked truths. And he showed all the villagers who he wrote out the bare facts of big Mark. He was nude. He was naked. And of course, the villagers never let him forget that he became famous. And they told the neighbouring villages and all the monks who became one of the true stories, the true stories about the monk who was not afraid of tigers. The point is, until he actually meets a tiger, we don't know whether we are afraid. This only experience itself can tell us the truth. When I was in Melbourne. I've only just recently returned yesterday from a trip to Melbourne. We were in some talks. We started talking about are you afraid of death? Are you afraid of this? You don't know until death comes up. Some even say I'm not afraid of death. But when death comes. Only then will you truly know. It's only the experience, not the theory, which we have to go on. Because the theory or our ideas and our assumptions so often are untrustworthy. Especially if we haven't got a means to really know what experience truly is. Because sometimes our experience of life know. We think we know. But the truth of the matter is very, very different. You know that before I became a monk, I was a teacher, before a teacher, I was a scientist. And one of the pieces of science I love more than anything else was quantum physics or quantum mechanics, because that really tested now my assumptions about what nature really was, because it was very, very weird and very, very strange. And one of those, uh, experiments or one of those, um, parts of quantum physics, which showed me how strange the world was and how I made so much assumptions and how my experience of the world was actually not was actually what was actually out there. Was a story of Schrodinger's cat. I like cats, but this physicist did a very mean thing to his cat. He put this cat in a box in that box with a little vial of cyanide, which would kill that cat if it was smashed. And next to that value was some sort of device, some atomic device. And if the particular atoms decayed, then the vial be smashed. If they didn't, decay would not be smashed. And the cat would live. There was a 50% chance that the VAR would be smashed. 50% chance that it wouldn't. And the point was, according to the reality of science, undisputed absolute reality. Until he opened. The box. It's not that he couldn't tell whether the cat was alive or the cat had died, though the cat was neither alive nor dead, according to the most rigorous perfect of sciences, that cat was in some realm where he was neither alive nor dead. And that was actually the truth of things it believes I've experienced. I experienced that it shouldn't be that way. And even those of, you know, some of the stories of science now that Einstein just could not accept them. But Einstein was proved wrong. That is true. It's class of the tests for science for the last 50 or so years or more. So the world is much more different than we really think. Sometimes our experience is not the way things truly are. Sometimes our assumptions are not the truth. And an interesting understanding of this because somebody else also asked me, can I mention the Buddhist idea of reincarnation or rebirth? To some, that so obvious to others is completely unacceptable. And some people say, how can you know anyway? It was one year ago, was asked, do you believe in rebirth? He said no. Why? Cause I haven't died yet. He said. However, that was wrong because he had died. He just forgotten that. So. But how do we know that? How can we actually know whether that's true or not? But what's really interesting to me is not really whether reincarnation is true or not, but why? Sometimes people believe in reincarnation when they don't really know why. Some people don't believe in it, when again, they don't really know. What's really fascinating to me is how we form our ideas and opinions. Is it really an experience or is it not? And to illustrate this, I could tell a story of many, many years ago when I was the second monk, and that's who was the abbot at that time, the teacher, certainly, to give a talk at a school. And so I decided to go. Can't got much choice. If I wanted to keep out of trouble with the boss monk at that time. So I went to the to give the talk, and I found out only when I got there was a primary school and it was to year two's. And then. And how do I. And I thought, my goodness, how can I give a talk on the phone? I will choose a reincarnation. All these are the voidness of everything. How can I do this? The nature of non-self to a group of two year olds. So I started thinking quickly and I was talking about this and that and the other to try and get them interested. And then I asked him a question. So how many of you like rice and how many of you don't like rice pudding? As a question. I said, how many of you don't like rice pudding? And then there's I think there's two classes of the class of year two. But the parents are the teachers at the back just wondering what I was doing. About 3 or 4 children put their hands up. They did not like rice pudding. And you see all the other sort of year twos. They were looking around and they saw these 3 or 4 people putting up their hands. And so they put up their hands as well. And others looked around and they only took about 60s and about 60 year twos, maybe that many, about 50 had all put their hands up. Yes. We don't like rice pudding. I said, okay, put your hands down, children. Now can you put your hands up if you've ever eaten rice pudding and only about six children put their hands up. Everybody laughed. And I taught a very profound piece of Buddhism. It isn't the case so often that many of our ideas, which is take from others. How often is it when I tell the stories about what I used to eat in Thailand, like frog soup or frog and rice? I told that story so many times, I'm not going to repeat it here, but how many times people say, oh yeah, you know frog. So what about I don't think I told a time when we had bats head. Let me see. Now, that said, there was ugliest of things you can ever imagine. Cheers to you. Would you like to pass it? Okay. People have been, uh, wracking their heads they don't like, but said, how many people here have ever eaten bats head. Matt. You get the point. I just taught you Buddhism. We all are. So it's terrible. It's nasty, but we haven't tried it yet. You're not going on experience. It's just belief. Actually, it does taste disgusting. But you don't know that. And if you don't know that, how can you judge it now? You understand the problem with experience and our ideas and views. Too often we get these ideas and views and many of them are culturally conditioned. We think that that says would be awful. Oh, look at the cheese, which we ate moldy old cheese with green bits growing on it. That's happened many times when I was a young man. Sometimes your parents or somebody would actually visit and they'd bring you all this delicious cheeses, you know, from England. And I remember once it wasn't actually me and myself. It was one of my friends who's staying in Bangkok. Somebody, a rich person, came and offered them some cheeses. Stilton and gorgonzola, a bit of Camembert. Lots of really nice stuff. And I gave it to the one of the temple attendants to put in the refrigerator for the following day, the following day for lunch. They are bringing out the cheeses and the temple boys said I throw them away. Why? Said they'd gone off. Was supposed to be like that, and you could understand how anyone in their right mind could eat that sort of stuff for you, kid. Why is there just conditioning, that's all. Whether we like it or we don't like it, that's all it is. You know, that is part of a standing joke in my monastery. You know that two of my most favorite smells, which makes me feel so, so comfortable. One of them is like tar and the other one is batshit. You know, when I smell that, I feel so happy. Most of it is because when I was young and I used to play soccer in the local park, because in the Second World War, they'd use all the iron railings to build tanks and shells, and so they'd take out all the iron railings from all the parks in London and other places and replace the reward mistakes in order for them to, uh, be able to maintain themselves in that climate. They used to paint them with tar every year. And so that the smell of tar was the smell of my childhood. I some wonderful times in that park. So whenever I smell tar, it's just psychologically it feels really good for me. And as I say in that one. Some of these monasteries where I went to one in particular had this beautiful cave, and I used to spend so many happy hours meditating in that cave, and I made sometimes all day, and there were so many bats in there, and the whole place smelled of bat shit. And so whenever I smell bat shit. That's so wonderful. Yeah, it is true. It's just conditioning that. So what we like, what we don't like. So what is actually true and what isn't true? Sometimes it's just our conditioning, that's all. A lot of times what we want to believe becomes what is true. And that's why a lot of times I experience. She'll be really questioned. What I experience is what's actually out there and what happens when it gets into our brain. Is that the same? Does bat shit smell fragrant? Do bats head? How delicious. How do we know? Now, the point is that in Buddhism, they would have these great teachings. If anybody's listening to this on tape, it's called the whipper lasers. It's a it's a way that our perceptions bend the truth. What we actually experience. Is actually not accurate to what's out there. We actually filter out things. What we don't want to see. We would never see. What challenges are views and opinions we will just reject out of hand? We just cannot see. And I say this. If a UFO landed outside right now. If you if that just challenges your police system so much, you would not be able to accept it. When this little man in green came out with little tentacles and said, take me to your leader, you would think it was some sort of movie being being on, or somebody sort of playing a joke with someone of these, these organizations that either telegram and sort of get UFOs or Martians to sort of come and play a joke on somebody, you will not believe it, because it's just too hard to believe it goes against your police system. Even if it was true, he would not accept it. It's called denial, isn't it? A very famous part of psychology. So if there is such a thing as, say, reincarnation. It's a very fact that some people can't accept it, just denial. It's just too hard to accept because it challenges too much of what we think about life. It challenges our views. It challenges even our comfort zone. Because if there is such a thing as reincarnation and you have to come back here again. Then you are not done with nappies and school. You have to face her all over again. Imagine once more having a dummy put in your mouth to stop you crying. Again? That's not a nice thought. Because though for some people it's not this worse than that very idea of coming back again. So sometimes it's so horrendous, they just will not accept it even though it might be true. And I've said here, and if anyone likes to look at the evidence, there is heaps of evidence out there for the truth of rebirth and basically that now I haven't been a scientist before. If anybody is reasonable, is rational. And I look at that evidence out there. His plumbing. Convincing and very, very convincing. It cannot be explained by other ways. Look at the works by Ian Stephenson, which I think we have in our library here. Somebody got us a signed copy of Doctor Ian Stevenson's work. No. Professor Ian Stevenson's work. He's a man who spent his whole life researching people who spontaneously remembered their past lives. And one of the fascinating quirks of our human world. That his research into reincarnation. Got a sponsor from a very famous company in the US, and that company was Xerox, the photocopier. People wanted to find out about incarnation. I was back loading him and he got many, many sort of, uh, results from his work. And there's many other places where you can get results about reincarnation or rebirth. So why is it that some people refuse? To even acknowledge it is a possibility. Why is it uncomfortable for people to understand that? I know going on experience because I don't know yet. But sometimes it's because our likes and dislikes get threatened. The philosophical consequences of such a belief. As such, we don't really want to accept it. Sometimes it's just too hard. There's too much about truth. Which we don't want to see. So when we talk about experience, we just cannot sometimes trust our experience, what we say, what we think. If you believe, if you believe that bats hair doesn't taste nice. As soon as you have that asset on your plate, you think, oh, this is going to taste awful, this is going to taste awful, then it does taste awful because you just made it taste awful. You've actually made the world. It fits where you expected it to be. Now, how much else of that world do we actually just change to suit ourselves? Isn't that a beautiful sound? The mobile phone. Well, why do some people hate that sound? This. Conditioning. That so? What's wrong with that sound? See that too much of our judgments of others are all conditioned. What's good and what's bad? Where does all that come from? What is good? What is bad? Where's that will come from? A lot of is this conditioned? So here. Condition made this implanted by someone else, which is sheep. We just do what other people to. So we have a wonderful way of understanding just how truthful experience. Can actually be perceived because all of our experience gets bent by likes and dislikes. Where we take away likes and dislikes, only then does our experience become truthful. Does it become valid. It's a likes and dislikes. We stop as seeing the truth. So we have this practice in Buddhism called meditation. Meditation is where we let go temporarily of our likes and dislikes. Technically, it's called overcoming the five hindrances. The five hindrances are not just hindrances to becoming still in meditation. They're a hindrance which block wisdom, which stop you seeing the truth. That's why they're called hindrances. In brief, those five hindrances are desire. Second one is ill will as the two main ones this lot. And 12 when you do so dozy, you can't really understand what's going on. The other one was restlessness when you. Moving around all over the place, never still enough to see anything. Truthfully, you're going too fast. And the third one and fifth one is doubt. Sometimes the people have got so much that even if it's right there in front of you, you say, can't be true. It can't be true. You're just doubting when it really is. Instead of thinking about it, it should be looking. Those are the five hindrances. These are the things which bend the truth so we can't trust experience. You can see what desire is. Vested interests, desire. That's why sometimes you can't even trust science. Because there's too much vested interest in science. I think only recently, I think that the journals I think like Nature and Scientific American actually insisted. That all of the people who submitted papers for publication. Told who paid for that research. Because it was a case many years ago where some research was done which showed that smoking, smoking cigarettes stop you getting Alzheimer's disease. There is a strong correlation from the research that people who smoked did not get Alzheimer's disease. Until somebody found that was sponsored by cigarette companies. And they looked at the research a bit deeper, and they found it was just that people did not live long enough to get Alzheimer's disease. And I suppose. That's easy to prove, things like that if you really want to. And very soft and fast. Sometimes you're bending the truth. And the point is that sometimes you're telling people what they want to believe. And yeah, they'll believe that. That's why people shop around for people to tell them no what they want to hear. And sometimes that's one of the problems people actually shop around, sometimes for for counsellors or therapists. They shop for this one and that one and that one and this one. And when the counselor tells them what they want to hear or they understand me and they go back again. So sometimes you've got to be very careful, though, because sometimes. You can respect people who tell you what you don't want to hear. Because sometimes that's the truth and you need to hear it. Sometimes the truth. The real truth is sometimes unpleasant. I remember reading an article once about this man who had. He was actually in it wasn't in Perth, it was in some other state, but in the equivalent of grey lands, which was, you know, the. The hospital for those with some mental disturbance. And like many people who I visited over there, everyone I visited over there said, I don't know what I'm doing in here. Everyone else is crazy in this place. What am I doing in here? And the reason is because you're crazy too. That's why for this man was being visited by a friend, and a friend had the courage to tell this inmate of this mental institution. He said you're mad. You're crazy. And in this little article, which I read. He said. That was the first time that this man in this institution realized that he too, was the same as all the others, that he too was crazy. He'd been in denial. He think everyone else was crazy, but he was okay. And he said that he. And he had so much gratitude in the later part of his life for that best friend who actually told him the truth, rather than just snow trying to tell him what he wanted to hear. He told him the truth. You're crazy. You're mad because that was a start. That was the start of his recovery. What? He realized he had a problem. Then he started doing something about it. And eventually he got through that problem and lived a normal, very successful life. But how many of us have got the guts to tell our friends? You know you're crazy. You're mad. Because we always tell them, or we want to tell them what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear. It's this wanting business actually stops the truth from being seen or being known. Where is he? He will. Now. We just cannot see things. Sometimes it is so unpleasant to see this. That happens so often in illnesses in particular, how many people actually get sudden heart attacks, the scenery so healthy they suddenly just drop down dead? Are they really sudden? I don't think they are sudden. I think that they've been hearing, or rather, the body's been telling, giving the signals for a long time. But I'm denial. It is. You can't hear them. You can't see them, because the fact that you're in ill health is just too bad. It's too, too awful for you. It is. You cannot see it. You cannot hear it. So it's only when we're truthful that we actually can really look after our body. So being in denial is actually not seeing the truth. And again, when we have this slot and all this dullness and actually that's for most people in this world, they live in darkness. Their experience is only just. Half of what's really happening. So give you. They give you a simile which works very well. It's an old simile, which I've used many times is a simile of my monastery in serpentine, two kilometres up a hill. I was going up there for about ten years in a car, up and down, up and down, up and down. One day I decided to walk up the hill. When I walked up the hill, the hillside looked very different. I never seen the hillside like that before. When I start to look even more beautiful, more rich, more detail, and I reflected on why that happened, why that happened. This actually shows. While a lot of times we don't understand the true experience, when you're going in a car, you're going so fast. What you see hasn't got time to imprint itself on your senses. All you see is flashes of what's happening. How can you really know? How can you take that momentary experience of being truth? The only time you really understand a hillside like that is to go slow, to have the time to see everything which is happening there. If many of you heard that story before, but how many of you have actually walked up and down your street where you live? Slowly. Instead of getting in your car and driving backwards and forwards. How many of you even actually walked around this park in front? If you walk around this park, you'll find it's very, very different. Never seen before. It's strange and fascinating what happens when you slow down? Because what it's doing, it's giving you an experience of what is happening when you slow down. When you slow down, you see much more. You see more deeply into things and it always happens. What you see is more beautiful. It's full of more happiness and joy. Restlessness or sloth and torpor. They both work together. Sometimes we're so tired we can't really see clearly. Our senses are dull. Sometimes we're going so fast we haven't got time to see things. So how much of our life will be truly understood? How much experience has been valid and how much have been is just partially experienced. We rush past and we don't really know what's going on. You've been going too fast. Which is why we have a meditation to slow down. We have our meditation to get rid of likes and dislikes, but to see what's there. When we see what's there. We have no likes and dislikes. We slow down. We start to have truthful experience not only of the world, but of ourselves. If you're going to be. Someone who creates things or invents things or finds deeper secrets. This is actually how you do it. Creativity will come out of silence. Creativity will come out of times when you slow down, when the mind starts to stop. We start to see more fully into things we experience comes much closer to truth. The faster you are, the further you are from truth and reality. The slower you go, the deeper you see. One of the reasons why we have so much problems in our modern world. We go so fast we don't even know what we're doing. And that's why I see another email came through. They wanted me to give a Buddhist comment about the abuse of prisoners in Iraq. People are out of control. I don't know what they're doing. I'm sure that some of us know these soldiers and British soldiers as well as. American soldiers when they look back on what they did. They wonder, why did I do that? What was happening so out of control? How many of you are out of control? We're not really knowing what we're doing. Just responding so quickly. Not really understanding what's truth, because when we just stop and look at that, that's horrendous. Why on earth could anybody do that? It seems ridiculous. But the only thing those people who are those soldiers in charge of the prisoners were any different than you. Were you or I? When we're going fast and speeding and not having time. It's amazing just how we can misunderstand what's really going on and how in particular, natural compassion which comes out of a human heart, which will never allow that to be done to any human being. How that through the perversion of our perception, not seeing really clearly, not understanding what we're doing, how we can actually misbehave like that. That's why it's more important to slow down, to stop and to get into real experience. Valid experience. So actually you'd know. You'd feel that that is wrong. I just cannot do that. I was quoting a little, um, book review, which I read a long time ago, written by, I think, an English general, a soldier who was not only experienced through his own career, but also read widely on military history and military ideas. And one thing which he wrote in that particular essay, which was really, um, interested me, was saying that how hard it was in armies to get the soldiers to actually fight. He said all the training in the world. Which sometimes be useless, though when the soldiers in his army were facing the enemy, we actually saw someone rushing towards you, about to kill you. You had a gun. He said he wouldn't believe just how many soldiers would refuse to let you pull the trigger and kill the person coming towards him. Even though it meant that they would have to die. But sometimes that seeing somebody else's face, seeing another human being there, you just cannot. Kill him. And so, so many soldiers in battle would actually have the ability to defend themselves, but would not take that opportunity, would rather die. It's a part of the art of being a soldier. He's trying to convince or condition soldiers to actually pull that trigger. A lot of them just won't do it. It's interesting just how. There is something inside of ourselves, some real experience, which we call compassion or kindness. When we slow down, when we look, when we fear what's happening inside of ourselves, when we go to the truth of experience, but not just experience, which is. Bent out of desire or ill will, or out of fear. When is none of those hindrances there? We go to bear experience. That's why that's compassionate, that's soft, that's loving. That's forgiving. So when we're talking about experience, those are the experiences which we should develop. And we should trust the experiences which come from a calm, peaceful heart. When we come from those experiences, then I think our human race has an opportunity, has a chance of actually healing the wounds of our planet and healing the rifts in our societies. If you can only trust in that experience, then how on earth can we ever kill anybody? How can ever can we abuse somebody? How could we even. Shout out to our husband or wife. However, we get angry, we go to the experience in our hearts. You notice whenever you get angry, you're forgetting about how you feel. You're just focusing on that trigger outside of you. That person is made you angry or that situation which was upset to you. As long as you keep thinking about that person or that situation, what we call the trigger of your anger. As long as you keep looking at that, the anger will continue. But if you stop looking at that and feel your own heart, how your experiencing it, will you shout at other people? So what am feeling? We would never do it if you could only see what's happening inside of you. You just take your own experience of the world as you act and you work through this world, and you feel how you're feeling when you're doing this, when you're saying that, when you're acting in that particular way, if you can only understand how you felt inside. That would be the best indicator of what's right and wrong. That would be what stops you doing, you know, harmful and hurtful things. I trust ourselves. Too often we do hurtful and harmful things because we're afraid we're escaping from reality. I know sometimes people say, are you monks? You just escaping from reality? No, you're the ones escaping from reality now, watching movies and just watching TV and just running here and running there to face reality. We have to stop. That's why many people have not gone to meditation retreat. So step spent time in a monastery. They've got nowhere to run away to anymore. There's no movies, there's no TV. Even the fridge is out of balance. You can't go and look in there and find something to eat your stuff all afternoon and evening, not eating anything stuck in your room. Nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Why do you want to go anywhere anyway? Why are we wanting to do it? Just try to escape from yourself. Trying to escape from the reality of this. So when we slow down a stop, our experience becomes of this. What's happening now? You. Life. In this moment. When you're meditating, could you stay still? If not, why not? What's wrong with staying still? Why can't we just rest in peace? Why is that so difficult? Because we've always been on the run. Her experience is never this sort of something else. Some fantasy in the future. We think that once we get our cake. Now we can eat it. We want it both ways. Always running away. If you come into the present moment, you find you've got all the cake you ever want there. And you can eat it at the same time. Because now it's the eating and the cake is in your heart right now. It's a beautiful fruit cake, which is you can look. Whatever you like. You did a case of Dahmer. Cake of truth. The cake, which is your experience in the moment you're experiencing it now, is strange. They're having a cake and eat it. We just want. It's actually to amass happiness. This is what actually really means to have your cake and eat. It means you got this beautiful cake. You want to keep it there so you can eat it in the future. You want to eat it now? If you eat it now, you haven't got in later on. If you keep it for later on, you're not eating it now. So you've got this table. You still have it now. She'll have it later on. A lot of times people do that. Sometimes they just have their happiness. Now they've got nothing left for later on. Sometimes they just, you know, enjoy, live for the day and they've found they've got nothing in the larder tomorrow. I haven't been to work. Sometimes I put off happiness into the future. That's like having your cape and keeping your cake. I always happiness tomorrow. I'll do this and then I'll be happy. So I'll get married and I'll be happy. I retire. Then I'll be happy. I'll become a lion. Then I'll be happy. I'll go to heaven. Then I'll be happy. Whatever it is that sometime in the future you'll be happy. Are you? Have you ever noticed just how. That's just. A delusion. We never get happy that way. So how can you have your cake and eat it? You'll find all the happiness you ever want in the world. Immense happiness. You don't have to keep it because keeping things is wrong. In other words, the more you keep, the more pain you have. You don't have to keep anything. It's a keeping, which is a problem. The cake is always there if you don't keep it. One of my similes, which I said recently in Melbourne yesterday, I think no, the day before in Melbourne was the simile of my mother's mantel shelf. Simply my mother's metal shell. My my mother's flats in London. She's got a shelf which was supposed to be above a fire but don't have a fire ready. Watch and have an electric heater. There was an old, uh, feature in Holmes which used to have coal flies or wood fires above. The coal would further be a shelf. And on that shelf you put photographs, knickknacks, the photos of when you got married or your children or whatever. When I first went to see my mother in London from Australia, of course, I gave her a gift. I gave her a little furry stuffed kangaroo, which you get from the shops, you know, nice cuddly toy. My mother loved it and I was cuddly kangaroo. So when I left, she could think of Australia and where I was. And so she put that cuddly kangaroo on a mantel shelf. A few years later, I visited her again, and this time I bought her a koala and she put it next to the kangaroo. Three days later, I visited the third time and bought her a koala. No, no cow I. I took about. And she put that next to the other two animals. And then one year when I went to visit her, I bought her a wombat. It's quite big too, but it's nice and furry and cuddly. And so when I gave her the wombat, she put it on the mantel shelf. But by now there was so many things on that mantel shelf where you put the wombat on. Quite a few other things fell off. And so she spent a long time trying to balance everything on its overfull mantel shelf. She had. And that you can see what a simile. And I told my mother, why don't you throw some of those things away, and we'll throw the old kangaroo and the kookaburra and the the koala away, saying the wombat. And they said, no, I can't. This means a lot to me. And that photograph of that. And this is what my, uh, your brother gave me when he visited Switzerland. And this is what somebody gave me when they came from Canada. And this is why they had so many inventors on there. They couldn't get everything on that mantel shelf. Things kept falling off. I told him. That's a symbol of a mental breakdown. When you've got so much stuff in there that you put one more thing on, it, just everything falls off. Scheme. You know how to overcome mental breakdowns. Just turn yourself off. Throw a few things away. Why are you keeping so much stuff on there? Can't you throw things away over your life? What's happened in the past? He said this. She said that this happened to me. That happened to me. My God, there's even one day of mental health business. You don't have to keep your mental background. So throw it all away. Leave it alone, for goodness sake. It's a very good simile. But why did my mother keep on keeping those things? Oh, because they were important. They meant a lot to me. It wasn't just good stuff. They also had some rubbish stuff up there as well. Some bills which you had to pay in the next few weeks. So you kept that on a mantle. Throw those away as well. Well said. You're over 70 now. You don't put people in jail and over 70. But anyhow, I. Okay. So you can actually see that they are throwing things away. The reason why we can't so just relax in the present moment is why we can't come to that better experience. And then char told her, lovely as um, a lovely story about, well, how we understand life and experience because he's in our monasteries in northeast Thailand. You're in John was in forests and actually get from one hut to another. We'd make paths in those forests and we sweep them every day. We sweep them full of light from swept them free of leaves. So when we were walking backwards and forwards, he looked to see if there's any snakes or centipedes or scorpions or black hands, which will really bite you very badly on the path, so we could actually see them and actually avoid them. And these actually paths in these forest monasteries were like just that because the sun was white underneath, like white rivers, you know, flowing through the forest. They're very beautiful. But when he came to us, we used to sweep every day when we were sweeping the sand. I'd be sweeping a path and you turn around and a leaf would fall on this beautifully freshly swept path. And so, you know, being a perfectionist, I'd go back and sweep it away again. And you're always sort of going back on your work. But I tend to give this wonderful simile said, why is it that when one lily falls on a path, it really stands out? If one leaf falls in a forest with as many leaves, you don't notice her. He said. That's like life. When there's so many things happening. It's like so many leaves in the forest. You can't figure out the meaning of any one of them. When you swept the path clean. And just one leaf falls down. It stands out so easily, you can really understand its meaning and its truth. One of our problems is our experiences are just like leaves in a forest. There's too many of them. We can't really understand what's going on. Just like my mother's mantel shelf. There's so much stuff up there that you put one thing on there. Everything else falls off, and it all sorts of. One thing I noticed is disappears amongst a mass of other stuff. If you really want to have experience which can tell us the truth of things, we have to actually to sweep off our mantel shelf, empty it out, and then when a wombat goes on to the top there. This is one wombat and it's clean of all this other stuff. You can actually see it, you can experience it, you can enjoy it. You can understand it. Because it's alone and free. I'm not. Now, can you understand why our experiences. We can never really understand what's going on. We've got so much stuff and it's never really alone and free. It's also complicated with other stuff. So if we really want to trust our experience, it's not just getting rid of those five hindrances. It's getting what we call in Buddhism. One point hardness of mind. This one thing in the mind, not two, not three, but this. One thing. This. And if you've got a nice clear and empty mind, not too much going on, then we can understand what this experience truly is. Too much complexity in our world. Means our experience is just tangled. When we untangle that experience, then we can find out the truth of things. And the best experience of all is the the truth of happiness. Sometimes our happiness is so complicated because things are moving too fast. Something is happening. But I just get one happiness, one thing. Which is why we meditate just to get one point in this about one thing happening. And see that we empty the mantle shells of our poor brains. Freedom from the complexities. When sometimes it feels like that, doesn't it? One more thing you put in your brain and everything sort of tumbles down and gets mixed up. You don't know where you are. Keep it free, keep it empty, and then you can truly trust the experiences of your life. So when we talk about experiences or enjoying. The cake and eating at the same time. This is actually by letting go of the past. Letting go the future and being the present you find is always a nice kangaroo on your mantel shelf. Oh one but who cares what it is? Just one thing. Who cares what type of cake? You don't have to keep the old cake because cakes are being delivered every moment of your life. That's how we can enjoy the cake and eat it. We eat this moment and there's another moment coming right behind. We don't need to keep anything. The less you have, the more you can enjoy it. That's how to have your cake and eat it. Look at the monks. The Mongols have don't have any money since it doesn't have any money. But we get cakes almost every day. We gave an out cakes and that's why we get lots of cakes. You know, there is some because, you know, I came from the Thai tradition. There are a group of Thai Christian nuns in a in a I think it's a Carmelite convent south of Banbury. And some of the Thai people here because they're Thais, Asmat. If you're Buddhists, they can still go in and give nice gifts to this, these poor Thais and it's conversely closed convent. You can actually go in there if you want to visit. Actually, it's like being in prison. You go to a grill and they're on the other side. You can actually talk through the grill. And I remember one of these ties went up to to Banbury and they made them a nice chocolate cake, you know, like something special. You know, like, you know, if you're going to go, you know, to a friend or someone, you respect him, like to the monks, you always want to give something special. That's one of the troubles that, you know, when people actually bring food to the monks, it's always something special. It's so hard to get simple food. Hanging in. We used to get into trouble this when in the early days when they'd come and give food to the monks. Nearly especially the Thai women and the husband would come with them and complain. So she never gives such food to me. Because that's what? Because you're not a monk. That's why I used to get the best food anyway. So they brought the chocolate cake. Is these nuns? And when actually offered snow through the school is chocolate cake. The nuns, as snow forgot her mindfulness and said, oh no, not another chocolate cake because I can't eat chocolate cakes every day, just like we do. So if you want to have your cake and eat it, then be a monk or not. But what I mean is the answer to that question. It would, in other words, give up things. You have everything come to you and what you give out the more you get. So and it's true if you give up seeking for happiness. If you give up the search. If you give up. Wanting out there. Wanting out here. Give up searching. Then happiness comes to you. You find I was searching. Was what was actually taking you away from happiness. As a Chinese saying says so. The hungry man was looking to. Looking for fire. Looking for a flame to cook his evening meal. And he was looking for flame with a candle. If he only knew what slime was, he could have cooked his dinner much earlier. Very profound story. You can imagine this. This man with a candle. Looking for fire here. Looking for fire there. Fully realized what flame was. He had the flame all the time. We're looking for happiness here. We're looking for happiness. For only realized we had the happiness inside of us. That was his looking, his the flame. Then we could cook our dinner much, much earlier. We could have our cake and eat it at the same time. Every moment of our lives. And that is the experience of coming in to the present moment. Giving up these five hindrances. Coming into oneness. Coming into happiness. Finding the Nibbana cake and eating it. So somehow I managed to combine experience and having a cake and eating it and a few other things as well. So I hope you enjoyed the talk this evening. So thank you. Now, are there any questions about this evening's talk? Yeah. Go on from the back cover there. Yes. What happens if there's a serious concern in their life? You actually find out what that concern is. If there's something you can do about it, you give everything you've got. If there's nothing you can do about it, you do nothing. Some serious concerns you can't do anything about. So you leave them. You make peace with them. As I'm concerned, we have a responsibility and duty. You do something. One of my stories actually came from the British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, who during the Six Days War where Israel was fighting Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, a few other countries as well, probably. The British Prime Minister was asked by a reporter what he thought about the war in the Middle East or the problem in the Middle East. Thing was the words, and this British statesman said there is no problem in the Middle East. Very powerful statement. He said there is no problem in the Middle East. The journalist said. What do you mean? There's no problem in the Middle East? Don't you know there's a war going on? People are killing themselves. And this British statesman replied, sir, a problem is something with a solution. There is no solution in the Middle East. Therefore, it's not a problem. No, no, no. That's actually a very, very profound statement. He had to be efficient with all those possibilities he had. For him. Things which had a solution had an answer. He could do something. That was his problem. That's where he worked. That's where he thought. That's where he exercised his mind and every other ability he had when it was nothing to do. And then it was true. There was no solution. He couldn't do anything. Therefore, it wasn't a problem. So if you have something happening to you and it's nothing you can do, it's not a problem. It may be unpleasant, but as you've heard me say here before, unpleasant situations in life are like stepping in the dog poo. They're smelly, they're unpleasant, and you wish you hadn't have done it. But there is. The dog poo is on your sandals or even on your feet, because sometimes banks go barefooted. Even the kangaroo poo, some very, very devoted person once came to my monastery, decided to bow to the monks on the road without looking what they were doing. They put their head into kangaroo poo. Yeah, I think they added the blue. Now, the point is, sometimes that's what life is. So what do you do with the kangaroo poo? If you complain about it, get upset about it, get angry about it. You're not realizing that kangaroo poo should be taken back and put in your rose garden. Put in your mango under your mango tree and always remember that mango trees love dog poo. And whenever you taste that mango. When it's ripe. Remember, that's what you're tasting. For all that sweetness came from the dope it does. It goes in there and becomes mango. And just assimilate. If it's a really serious crisis or problem in your life, there's nothing you can do about it. Finally. If not, dig it in. Take into your life. Learn compassion and wisdom. Learning journeys. Whatever that crisis is there to teach you. It is fertilizer for your spiritual life. It's not pleasant at the time, but don't worry about it. Dig it in. So you'll find at the end of that. Cycle. You'll be so grateful for the crises you had in life. When you use wisely this fertilizer, making you a wonderful, more compassionate, more wise person. It's not just for your own benefit. How the people will appreciate your compassion and wisdom. It's all coming from the crisis in your life. When you put around the mango tree, you give your dog mangoes to everybody. So your friends, your relations, even to your favorite monk. Thank you. We get mangoes too. And they all come from the doctor. The answer your question. Sort of. Okay. Any other question? Yes. So to me, because even in the ancient scriptures, I would have actually said as many, many hundred thousand fold world systems. And just this planet is not the only world system. You know, in the, in the universe, we also there have been many serial universes. It's not the first universe cycle. It's not just a first big bang. Yeah, speak for yourself. But he's looking. But let's just put some other marks. Been living up to. Very different for us. But some beings would have done that and would have evolved from that. Some beings would be in many other realms of existence, which sometimes seem like ghost realms and like heavenly realms everywhere. Sometimes people think that can't exist because I've never experienced it. Fine. But you can experience those realms, and those realms do exist. It may seem strange. Why can those worms exist? But I had my perceptions actually challenged when I did, you know, quantum physics. And I realize just how little I do and how much I assumed that the best thing which I got from that. Correct. You can be reborn on other planets. Other realms of existence. Sometimes that as human beings. Sometimes we're very conceited. Think we know so much for what we know of this life. It's just so small. You know, sometimes maybe 100 years from now, they look back upon this life and think we're just like people in the Middle Ages who thought the world was flat. People actually believe the world was flat. You go so far, you fall off the edge. There's stupidity, but people believe that because that was their experience at the time was obvious for many people. You look at the world and is flat. But now we know different. Now we know even the universe is curved. Three dimensional curve so you can go in any direction, any direction you want. You come back right here where you started long enough. How can that happen? It's just now when you get your head around, you understand? That's actually true. You can understand that. You know you can't go fast in the speed of light, but you can still go to, say, a solar system or star system ten light years from here and ten minutes. And that is not a contradiction. Because you know, your perception of distances changes with speed. That's what the theory of relativity is all about. So that is what looks like a contradiction. How can you get to a star ten, ten light years from here in ten minutes and not break the speed of light? Yes, certainly. That's it. Because when you start going faster, uh, you get what's called the. What's it called? The Lorentz contraction, which means a distance that appears less. And time dilates as well. So time is actually different for you. You've heard that everything about two twins, one goes off the speed of light and comes back and, uh, you know, his, uh, twin brother, born on the same day, is now an old man. He's still like a young boy. Because time changes. And that's true. It's been proved to be true. So your perceptions of time, your perceptions of space that is challenged. Your experience is not real. Because it's been changed. Been conditioned. And this is actually why there's sometimes we say rebirth can't happen. Look, you're limiting your experience. You know it can. Looking to find ways to. Oh, yeah. That's like evolution, especially to smaller time scale. And take a look at the bigger picture. Not just one sort of planet evolving. But in our whole solar systems, whole galaxies, even bigger than the galaxy in a whole universe is sort of evolving and a whole evolutions of universal cycles. And we started off, you know, people thought that my village was the be all and end all of the world. And then we traveled and found out there were other villages. And so we thought my country was a middle country and it was the only place where people lived. And then we explored further in ships and found out there were other countries, other races, other people. And then we started realizing, this earth is not just the center of the universe. We found out then it's got a whole solar system, and we found our solar system was not the center of the universe, but it's just on the edge of a spiral galaxy. And even our galaxy is not a center of the universe. And even our universe is not the center of things, but many, many others. We always think we're the center of things, and that's our sort of delusion. It's our pride. We think that this universal cycle is the most important. But remember 91 Universal Cycles. I said from Big Bang to either Big Crunch or just whimper. Sometimes it goes one way, sometimes the other way. This is actually said by the Buddha because of remembering the past lives. Could even remember that far back. And it's fascinating. I always think, why do you say 91? Just because that's what he remembered. That's all about 78. Not 100, not no. Some fascinating figures 91. That's all he could remember. Pretty good memory, I say. So it just gives us different conception of time, much more than just another. The simple evolution of this planet. For many other planets where human beings could have been. Or be similar beings could have been born. Not the same, not with the same ears or whatever, but, you know, similar lifeforms, similar consciousnesses exploring the world. Fascinating concept and that's not making it up. That's traditional Buddhism from the old cities. Fascinating idea. Really bending the mind. Which is what we're supposed to do. To bend the mind. To actually open up to experiences which at first seem impossible. I seem to be contradictory. We actually open up. We found. Yes. True. So be careful. What you believe is true is not the whole story. Okay, so any other question before we finish off? Are you going? 8s Yeah. If you have some ill will and hatred. Hatred the situation this also the fear comes when we're about to lose something. But I think most of the case is actually the delusion of thinking someone is different than us. That's where we get into a lot of difficulty. Now, if if a feminist think that men are different than they are, they're not different just in a different body, that's all. So there's a lot of times we get into what's called tribalism. I know my race is better than your race, for my village is better than the village next door. And this is actually the tribalism of our world is what causes so much problem. And even though we're American and Iraqis, you know, as human beings, that's all. We're just people. We're just beings. Now we've got species is aware, we think, okay, human beings were all the same, but we're much better than the animals so we can eat them. You can torture them. We can use them in experiments. We can maltreatment. And this is one of the problems here. And that's actually the delusion. If we actually only see more deeply, we find every being has the same sort of mind as you have. Underneath the body, you know, beneath the form of our of our life. For something which we have in common with all living beings, which, when it's seen without it being compassion for all living beings. When we see what's in common. In the same way we have compassion for each other. What do you mean by each other? I mean people similar to me. Call other beings similar to me. We actually see that we go beyond fear, beyond desire, what I want. We go to truth and we find so much in common with others. And if the. Americans are. The British actually could see what they had in common with the other Iraqi soldiers, or if the participants could see what they have in common with the Catholics in Northern Ireland or whatever Israel is with the Arabs. See what they have in common. And it can't be any wars anymore. How can you fight your friends? I think it's the delusion. Causes of fear. Okay. I think that's somewhat because I'm getting afraid that many people are leaving and we haven't made the announcement yet, and I get in trouble for my president. And so out of fear in upsetting our president, I am now going to ask him to give the media announcements. Yet today I get in trouble for my president. And so out of fear in upsetting our president, I am now going to ask him to give the.