Excellent. As usual, I try to give talks on something which somebody said to me either on emails or on just talking together different times, different places. And one of the things which people were asking me to please talk about just a good speech, right speech, but you don't want to just keep it through physical conduct. I know that most of the talks which I'd and Char would teach were always about like Vinaya, their one's conduct. But nevertheless you would always try to tie that in to some of the deeper teachings of not just what you do and say but how you think and how you can find peace.
And from that peace, how it can become such incredible, powerful meditations. And there's a great deep state of mind from where the five hindrances can be overcome and you can actually see things as they truly are, you know, without distorting wisdom. But first of all, the thing which came up to me just when I was in my heart, you know, just contemplating exploring how can I put all those things together was the obvious story, I hope it's obvious for you, but that was the story of my favourite monastery, more than the three monks of Anurudha, Kimbala, Anandia.
Now I usually get the names wrong, especially the last name, but just to make sure I actually looked it up in the sutta, just to make sure I just get it right thistime. And those three monks, and the reason why I mention that, that's an ipicalesus into one of my favourite sutta's, where the Buddha talks about nimeters, about these lights which come up in the mind and how you can actually just deal with them. But it also was a beautiful sutta because the Buddha had just been to this place in Kossambi where the monks were always arguing together.
And when they did argue together, they always thought that they were right and everyone else was wrong. And the way they said that in Pali, they were like hurling verbal daggers at each other. That's quite a nice metaphorthere, you know, they just with words, they can really hurt sometimes. And it's not justhurling verbal daggers which was the problem, but even when the Buddha tried to intervene and settle things down. It was amazing that when one thinks one is right and one gets angry with speech, one doesn't even respect the teacher.
And that was kind of just an eye-opener for me that you would always say, this was the Buddha and the ordained them, taught them,had some great disciples, but they wouldn't even listen to him. And so that's when the Buddha left Kossambi and one of the first places he went to almost like an opposite of this small wehara, only three monks in it and somebody at the gate protecting them. And I kind of liked the story that in those days that people wouldn't even recognize who the Buddha was. So the gate person tried to refuse the Buddha entry to this little hermitage and then the Buddha said, I've just come to help these three monks here and the gatekeepers said, no, you can't disturb them. And Anarudha heard the discussion. And because he heard
the discussion, Anarudha got up and said, no, that's our teacher, that's the Buddha, at least let him in. And the Buddha never got angry at the gatekeeper because good monks
never get angry at anybody when they make mistakes. The Buddha just came in and saw those monks and just asked how they were living. And this is the reason why, being up this story, that they would hardly speak to each other at all. And if they needed to have a question answered, they would answer that question. But a lot of times they just knew each other so well that speech was not really necessary. They wanted a water pot field, they just pointed to it, or they would just ask peace. And then they would move those water pots together.
The first person who came into the Dhanasala would set things up, it didn't matter whose turn it was, whose name was on the roster. I don't even know who was senior and who was junior. I imagine Anarudha was a senior because the Buddha would always talk to him first. But nevertheless whoever came first did that little chore and whoever was last, they cleaned up at the very end. And it was just, they looked after each other. And they never actually needed to make rosters. And that's one thing which
I always try to emulate and deliver for you.
If you see some who needs to be done, don't say, oh, I've got to tell that Anagarika off, they didn't sort of prepare that or tell that and not resolve, they didn't do that. If you're some of you can do, please do it. And of course I was really happy to see that someone, like Adam Bremali apparently is outside listening to the back somewhere, hopefully smiling. Every now and again he takes my bowl. He just takes it down stairs,
he may wash it, I'm not sure. But I remember, it doesn't matter how senior you are, you can still wash somebody's bowl. It's very rare that I meet anyone senior to me.
But I remember just going to Melbourne some years ago. And there was one monk, I think it was one year senior to me, I think we're both like 20 or 30 rains. And so when we were sitting together, there was two in this small hermitage in Melbourne. When the meal was finished, I finished first and I just got up to go and say, I can wash your bowl now. He said, no, no, no, we're both Mahateras, you don't need to do that. And it was wrong to argue with him. So I just grabbed his bowl and ran. And I always remember that he wasn't fast enough to stop me, because I could wash his bowl. And I kind of, I did that because it was a lovely thing to do.
It doesn't matter how senior you are, how junior you are. If it needs to be done, you just do it. And that's what it's like being a monk, of being a nun. Yeah, we have people sit in the front and people sit in the back. But that's not that important. I usually sit in the front as a car or something, taking you somewhere, simply because I can keep the Tesla free from fronting collisions. But I need somewhere in the back there to keep it safe from rear end collisions. And it's only messing around. The point is that we try and just make it so that we're monks, together, friends.
And to be able to have that kind of attitude, I kind of wondered, you know, all these years, you know, why is it that sometimes it's so easy for me to act as if I'm not the boss. And why other people, they can think they can just go into other people's monasteries and tell them off and criticize other people. That type of, we call it a forest monk, that's not a forest monk, they haven't been trained at all. They do things like that. Even like for you to learn the right ways of criticizing somebody so it can be heard. And so you don't come across as a fool and just what is it called? Arrogance.
If a person has got some understanding of the Dhamma, they know that how the Buddha described, you know, enlightened ones, the really enlightened ones, you know, the real kubar adhans, the real leaders of the Sangha, they say they never ever think they're better than anybody else. They never ever think they're worse than anybody else. And they never ever think they're the same as anybody else. Those three forms of conceit have been abandoned, seen through. And I kind of love that idea.
Because even there's some different groups, mostly of monks, different groups in different lands. Sometimes they come up and they say, we're the right Buddha, so we've got the right truth. We know the Dhamma, you guys don't. We know how to meditate, you don't. Even that, you can see just how to hear that. And it's like very harsh and unwelcome. And sometimes you hear some beautiful speech. And I make that comparisons and that negative speech. Why do people do that? Why do they want to put you down or put anybody down? The reason is because they think when you get pushed down, they get raised up. They feel better, superior.
It's all coming. I can see that so clearly, coming from this misguided sense of ego. In order in order to be, you know, a sense of self to be respected, you've got to be able to put other people down. Either known what Dhamma, the nadu are explaining in a different way. To me that shows you know very little Dhamma. But if a person, you know, they just try and put you down, they criticize you. If you're just peaceful and say, I don't need to listen to stuff like that. The way they speak will show me the very, very little understanding of the truth. The kindness, the gentleness, that is a sign of understanding of the Dhamma.
And if you can't speak like that, then you're still lots of practice needs to be done, lots of restraint, lots of abandoning, lots of letting go. Because that is how when you're a sense of self and your belongings, attachments, knowledge, things which you own, when those are let go of more and more and more, the sense of self and ego starts to get more and more, not there. It starts to disappear. A person's ego is just like basically how much they own. The greater knowledge, greater understanding, more sort of superior deep meditation, I can see it longer than you can. Please, I love it. Say that, that, that, that, that. I don't know if you do that these days.
That's what you should do is from a primary school kid. It just shows you just how immature that idea is. But instead, that, like those monks, they'd hardly speak to each other. And because they'd hardly speak to each other, they were just in so much incredible harmony. And more than that, that's where the Buddha, when they asked, how's your meditation going, how's your insight going? And then when he heard from them, I said, I feel it was kind of rude, all the Buddha said this.
He said, well, look, when you monks live like that, it's so calm and peaceful and no fault finding with each other. It's amazing. It's not amazing, sorry. It's to be understood. You start to get very deep states of mind, deep meditations and deep understandings. How else can it be? And I kind of love that connection between the bodily conduct, especially the speech and the ability to get deep meditation. Because there's a question I'm always asked, how can we get deep meditation? You know, yeah, I jumped on me, keep on saying, just press the letting go button.
Oh, where the heck is it? I've been searching for that letting go button for the last 20 years. Maybe I was born without letting go button. Maybe just, you know, there's my karma from the past, I'll never find a letting go button and don't ever think like that. That's just the way that people speak negatively, always looking at the faults and mistakes. I don't have this sense of hope. And it's even going to say and I'll say it like faith, confidence is actually there. And that's one of the reasons why I said to one person, they said an email to me, they said, they really, really help them when I gave them that simmity of the thousand petal otus.
And it's the one of the advantage of that simmity. Okay, wasn't said by the Buddha. But nevertheless, the idea that that means in each one of you is not only the first, second, third, fourth genres right inside this body and mind right now. But it's also the deep insights as well, right inside. And the kind of, that's a nice metaphor. It's a nice metaphor because it's not as if, you know, that you have to get something. It's like it's something almost already there, but covered up, hidden just with sheath after the sheath of petals. And your job, if you call it a job, is to learn how to sit still enough and to stay there and have the confidence.
The confidence is important because that confidence will start to see things slowly disappearing. And when it does disappear, hopefully, my brain washed you enough by now that you value things disappearing, things simplifying, not enough as many barriers as there were before. You know, you may think you're still a heck of a long way away from anything really useful, but you should realize it's getting a little bit more peaceful, a little bit more comfortable, a little bit more understanding. You don't need to try so hard. And that kindness as well, the same way of kindness, you never want to say a bad word to anybody else. But to praise them, praise their good qualities.
I saw this so many years ago that if you praise other monks and nuns and anaguricers and novices, you can see their good qualities. It's amazing they can start to see their good qualities as well. You're changing the way that people look at things. You know, this monastery, Bodhinyana monastery area, maybe a bit disorganized. How many of you thought not a bit a lot? Sometimes, why do we keep seeing the thoughts? And it's reasonably well organized. It could be more organized. Welcome to life. But instead of seeing the thoughts in it, you see the beauty in it.
You know, same as Dhama Sava. You have a place there. And when you go back there
this evening, you've got a kutif for yourself, a room. It's got your things and it's safe, it's comfortable. And you can sit there and it's quiet. People teach you, they respect you, they feed you. And you can keep your monastic walls there. Wow, this is amazing. Okay, it may be better. Like all the monks here who haven't got air con, they think, oh my goodness. So in lay life, I could get air con is nice and cool. But it's only honestly, it's a few days. And I can say that because I've been in this monastery when it's been really, really hot. You survive.
And sometimes, when it is hot, I always appreciate it when it calls off. I never forget the heat. I deliberately think of that and think, well, it's cooler today. Wonderful. When you have that positive mind, you deliberately sort of, you know, find some peace then. And why do you find a peace? Just like being sick, a few monks are sick. Don't know how the nuns are. There's only three of you here today. So maybe a few of you are sick somewhere. So if you are sick, you know, what that does, when that passes, you appreciate health. I've never felt so healthy as after I've been sick.
Less than time, it kind of gets normal, ordinary. There's always a benefit there. I always try myhardest to try and find the benefit of whatever's happening. And when I do, I realize that's how my meditation works as well. I don't need to sort of criticize any monk or nun. They're amazing monks and nuns. How much higher quality do the nuns who go to these monasteries and criticize people? And I say, you know, I don't believe in bikunis and just we're doing all the wrong stuff. Why do people ever say such things? I felt very sorry for poor Ayahuwimala. I don't know who it was, but it's crazy. That's not the tradition I'd ever want to belong to. So when we have a kind, and peaceful, so external life, if somebody arrives, you know that for those of you who've been with me on the weekend at Nonamara Centre, there's always somebody who after I get my servings of food, you get rice in your bowl, and people come and put some food in there, including nickels,who always puts anything which he offers in there in my bowl. You know, there's more than enough. And then what happens when people come late? There's a couple of people who always come late, one lady who comes late, but she comes not too late.
She just manages to squeeze in to the front just before Sompop puts up this sign. They started eating now, please keep off. And even if Sompop did put that sign up, I'd still let her come in. Oh, because he always helps out afterwards. He's cleaning up and stuff. I already admire people who do that. So, but nevertheless, that's just my mind. You can't be too critical if somebody arrives late. It should have arrived early. Well, okay, fine enough. And just the joy you get by letting them just put a bit of food into your bowl, a bit of rice which I won't eat, but it puts it into my bowl and I accept it with gratitude. It's beautiful.
There's something about that which inspires me. I may be weird, but it does inspire me. And that inspiration, again, is exactly the same way I look at my meditation, sit down in my cave or anywhere,wherever I can, sometimes in my office. I think by the time I get into my heart, I've missed a minute or two into my cave. So, I sit wherever you can. When I start meditating, sometimes you look at your body, you look at your life, you look at all the problems you have inthis world. And, you know, the head mug, you do have a lot of things you're supposed to think about and settle. Well, that would drive me crazy if I thought about all of those.
And some of the things just cannot be settled. There are problems which you can't find a solution. At least I've learned that that's the nature of many things in this world. They don't have solutions. So, you leave them alone. It's obvious. I keep thinking about it or worrying about it. It makes no sense to me. The same when you see light monks or nuns and agaricas, laypeople, we're having a very difficult time. And you don't go and throw them out or scolder. You always want to just be kind to them, honestly.
And sometimes you realize the best way is to please encourage them to go to another monastery or something. But nevertheless, you're trying to do your very, very best. And with that encouragement, that's what happens when there's any sickness inside of me or an ache or a difficulty or tiredness. That's something in my age now. You get tired much more easily, especially all the stuff you have to do. And so because you do get tired sometimes when you start meditating, you're going to have that tiredness in your body and that affects your mind. You don't have as much oomph when you first start meditating in the morning. At least that's what I feel sometimes.
And it's hot and I'm really not used to the hot weather. And even in the cave, it's still sort of not as cool as I would like. But it doesn't matter. It's good enough. I always love that so good enough. It's the same with just all the food. We had some gas soup today. It's up cold, so what's it called? Gas. Anyway, some people liked it. Did you get stomach ache afterwards? No. Amazing. That's a psychic phenomena. The world is a weak place. It would have probably given me the runs. But nevertheless, we got all sorts of strange food.
You know, sometimes I did this as a challenge and somebody actually did this. They made a baked bean soup. Do you remember that? Have you ever had that when I bought put a rakata? No. Baked bean soup. Oh, you didn't miss anything. But nevertheless, just all of the different possibilities. And when you don't judge it, until afterwards or even afterwards, you know, need to judge. Like human beings, like monks, nuns, novices, whoever it is. That idea of judging is hard to judge myself. So how on earth can I be accurate judging someone else? Because you realize you just can't do that.
It's lovely being surprised. So often in my life, I've been surprised. My people who come here are one of those people who really, really surprised me. I'll say the story again. Of that guy who came here on a retreat, he had so many tattoos on him, really untidy here, singular and shorts and thongs. For one of my retreats, it must be an Easter retreat or might be February retreat in those days, because I was in hot weather. And he really, I'd never seen him before. He never looked like someone who'd be a Buddhist. So much so that I told him, are you sure he got the right place?
Carnot prison farm is up the road. People actually do make mistakes sometimes. I know some Thai people are looking for the monastery and get to Carnot prison farm. They see gates around it and they think I was any monks in here. Fortunately, no. But nevertheless, I got it totally wrong because that guy was a great meditator. He was a star meditator to retreat and got a real dinky dijana.And I was very happy that I was proved wrong. I judged way too quickly and it disappeared afterwards, but apparently I think someone found him over in Sydney somewhere and it's one of the best retreats of his life, changes life.
So it was no real thing. But nevertheless, that idea of not judging makes it much easier to be kinder in the speech. Much easier to be kinder to when you start meditating and you're mindful. You're mindful, but you don't judge. You don't say this is good or this is bad, but you see the goodness in it. So what is wonderful to do is sometimes people say this, so they started meditating. But they have times when they can kind of get into it, but then it's difficult again. And I still recall this first lay meditation teacher who taught me, he was an ex-monk and he was working in the Thai embassy in London. He started a tradition over in UK, the Samata Society.
But he gave me some good advice when I was a lay meditator. One of the things he said was there's no such thing as a bad meditation. And of course, many of you and me when I was young monk was arrogant, but we barely, I think, what are you talking about? No such thing as a bad meditation, maybe for you, but you don't know my meditations. But over those years, you really value that piece of advice. I give that to each one of you. There's no such thing as a bad meditation. Very fat, you sat down and you had a little bit of aspiration for peace.
There's a wonderful experience even if it never happened, because from that you learn why it doesn't happen. And that's saying in the Upa Kalaisasuit there's no too much wanting, too much aspiration. It's lovely to give similes and one of the similes which I give for that is like, you're going back to say Dharmasala, but the car or the vehicle doesn't work. So you hire a taxi for you. What do you do? You don't keep telling the taxi driver, go to Dharmasala, you go down Kingsbury Drive, turn right onto the southwest highway, how we go this way go that way. You just tell the taxi driver, Dharmasala monastery, they put it in Google Maps and you can shut up and be quiet.
That's kind of a nice way of assimilating for what meditation is. One of the problems I know in meditation is you keep trying to interfere. Keep like telling your mind, come on, it's not working. Come and do it this way, do it that way, do it some other way. Put more effort in, put more wisdom in, just change your posture. It is be softer, be harder, be, I don't know what you keep saying, telling yourself. But I know that my mind, when I saw me acting like that, my poor mind rebelled.
Just like any one of you imagined that you were, I don't know what you did, not making that cupboard outside of the kitchen here in Bodhinyana monastery. And if I was standing over you and say, don't do it this way, do it that way. No, no, no, that's not straight enough. Come on, just do it a different way. And if I spent all the time of showing my great wisdom and construction with you for about an hour, how would you feel? You probably hit me with a hammer. At least you'd think about doing that. Because sometimes you have to trust people.
I still remember, you know, I just saw and had a nice kind word right up in my head at the beginning of this talk, he was outside, hiding behind one of the posts. But, you know, he wasn't a work, had like a construction worker at all when he started here.But I needed on one of the roads, I needed a little stone wall built. Because there was a bit of erosion there and that path was a bit narrow there. And I remember him telling me, I hadn't ever laid any bricks or certainly rocks before. And I remember just telling him, we'll just give it a try, see what happens. I told him how to mix up the cement water and left him to it. And that's still there today. I'd done my marley's first wall. Not like my wall with lots of crooked bricks in it. That wall looks quite okay. It survived such a long time.
But in order to get that type of success, he was encouragement, never thought finding. And that's actually how meditation works. There's no such thing as a bad meditation. You look at the meditation and you're grateful for it. I remember teaching that on meditation retreats, if you're going to say meditate for 45 minutes or an hour or however long, you say this is my offering to the Buddha, my teacher. I'm going to offer now one hour of my time this afternoon sitting down and just aiming for meditation, for stillness.
Achiever, I don't achieve it. It's not the point. But it's my gift. I'm not trying to attain something. I'm trying to give something, lose something, let go of something and offer this to the Lord Buddha. It's a beautiful way of looking at this path of meditation. And I know I did get one person was saying that they were facing a lot of fear in meditation. Sometimes when the meditation starts to work, you do experience fear. And I've experienced that many times myself. It's like this is big. When the meditation starts to work, it's time to get really, really peaceful for the first time and the body starts to disappear.
And the past vanishes and the future vanishes, you're going to a place you've never been before.And you also got some of these other fears like I don't deserve this. Or maybe I don't want this. After a while, that's your teacher's job. The brainwash shoe that this is worthwhile.And the more you read the suitors, the more you read things like the terry garter and terragarter, the verses of the Elder Monks and nuns, people do become enlightened. I mean really enlightened. The time of the Buddha, whether some people say they're enlightened these days, they certainly ain't. But this is actually from the time of the Buddha. And you read those stories and it really inspires you. And it should be inspiring enough to say yes, if this gets close. Now I deserve it.
Why not? And that positive attitude which you have to others never been critical of them becomes how you regard your own progress. You're not critical anymore. It's a beautiful sense of respecting yourself. It's like you respect others and you're kind to others. If they need to have an air con, you just do your best to make sure that one can happen. You don't say that only terroristsdeserve an air con. No. Because whoever wants one, if he can afford it, if he can be done, why not? If that why not? If you can experience a nimatur or a jhana, why not? It's a beautiful sense of giving, not deserving, but giving.
And then when you give your mind as a gift to the Buddha, see what happens. If you get jhana fine, if you don't get jhana equally fine, you really mean that.It's a letting go, not an attainment. When it becomes attainments, that's personal. That's one of the reasons why again I never liked the education system. It was always personal, attainment, personal knowledge, personal degrees. Not really valuing or rewarding people who could work with others who worked together. It would be great if we had a class, did it, like a joint degree.
They all passed or they all failed together. It would be much more like real life. So anyway, just when we learn about our own mind, we don't feel personal fear. It's not about you, you're disappearing. Once a sense of self does disappear more and more and more, the fear goes as well. How can there be fear? Fear is your own personal possessions starting to be challenged, starting to lose what you thought were your rights, privileges, freedoms, possessions. All of those things start to vanish and then you really find out what freedom is.
They're not freedom of desire, but freedom from desire. The whole idea of freedom from desire, you see it that you don't want anything in the whole world. Literally. You don't want to not want anything in the free world, in the whole world. Just all that wants and vanishes. What do you need wanting for? When you can be with your fellow monks and what they thinkis like what you think, that they're in harmony together. Just like those three monks, the Anarudha, Kimberler and Nandia, beautiful monks living together in peace.
And when that external practice is perfected in that way, the Buddha said, how can it not be to get these beautiful and nimitus, jhanas and insights and stages of enlightenment? Those two go together. It's not just virtue by itself. It's the virtue which lets go of that sense of self and ego and me and mine and think you can control things. It's like the Sangha, male and female, we work together and we get in harmony together. It is doing the work of the Buddha, the teaching, caring as best we possibly can.
And we do that to our body and mind. The teaching, care for it as best we possibly can and bring it to a beautiful state of peace and the freedom from desires. You're done your very best. So you give this extra time, you have, we all have some extra time. Yeah, we all get very busy but I always manage to find some time to sit on my backside and just meditate or do some walking. Sometimes when it's hot, you know, it's hot again. But always remember to try and find the beautiful side of light hot weather. And for me, I've told the people who up attack me up in afterthe lunch. To me, the beautiful part of hot weather is going to be a couple of hot days.
The beautiful part of that is that after lunch, usually people come and ask me all these questions after lunch and the lay supporters. But it's amazing when it gets above 40 degrees, 41 degrees. How do anybody come up to see me? Yay! I can go back early. That's why I was thinking that sometimes we say, so we put the fans on and say, no. No, shall we get an air conditioner in our dhanasada? No. Because then everyone will come up and hang out there and bother me. Okay, it's a bit selfish but I think I do enough talking. And even this evening, I think I've done enough talking so thank you all for listening.