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Excellent. So today I had a wonderful day, a wonderful day because many other things broke today. So I didn't... There was no internet during the day, no telephone. And it's kind of nice when things like that happen, as long as they don't happen too often. It just really reminds you of just, you know, why we're monks and nuns. Well, we come to a place like this. We come to a place like this, not to connect with the world, but to kind of disconnect. I still remember once when I was in... In Berkeley of all places in the United States, I invited to give this three teachers. One was Ratriyan, and one was his then master, and one was me. I'm a hahayana monk. I think somebody should giggle.
Thank you. So he made me laugh. So anyhow, that the different ways of understanding
Buddhism. Now I know if I jump on Māori who was here, he said, well those other ways aren't really Buddhism. But what I wanted to do was, you know, we all tended to say the same things. And the point of giving a talk is actually to get people to listen and to receive some dhamma, not just what they already know, but actually to kind of poke them metaphorically so they can see deeper. And when we started talking about everything is all connected, I said, no, it's not. And it's important to know that to be able to connect when it's time to connect and disconnect, when it's time to disconnect, you're not abound, you know, by the need to connect with the outside.
What if you were, if there's no way of disconnect, there would be no power in the banner? It's hard to be any sort of jhanas even. In the jhanas you are disconnecting. And the word you might just say is that we wake her. That's why we are in a monastery, in Dharmasara or in Bodhinyana or in the Cambodian temple, Dharmayana, I think it's called, well, Kusa-le-ri-hara or down in Albany. We do that in order to have some space and peace so we can disconnect from the world. And in order to disconnect from the world, we do need simplicity. And that simplicity means you can have a place like a cave like I have. And it's the place where you only need the basics of life. And I still recall, you know, being growing up and just fortunate that my family were poor.
So it didn't have much. I remember even the record player which my father had, you know, to play, even stuff like my Jimi Hendrix records. The one day they not came on the doors, some people came to take it away because, you know, it had the repayments hadn't been paid. You know, they were that poor. But what that did mean is when you had little stuff, you had more time, more peace, more time to even reflect. I remember also that the high school I went to, it had to get about three miles away, it had to get a bus to get there in the morning. And I loved those bus journeys. On those bus journeys, you sat by yourself and it was like your own free time. Your own free time to contemplate things. And I remember, honestly, when I was, you know, about 16 or something, starting contemplating the nature of infinity, you know, you could do that as a little kid. There's no one made fun of you. You were just sitting on a bus, minding your own business, and just contemplating all sorts of interesting ideas. I wasn't that interested in Buddhism at that time, but of course, you know, soon after I was. But nevertheless, that space and that time was important for you to disconnect from all of those things which were begging your attention, forcing you to do something else.
And honestly, I do feel for monks who come here and nuns as well, who just don't like chanting. Charding is a tool that can be useful for you, but it's not an end of it's in itself. There was some of these chants, I hope it's the same for you, when you do chant them, it becomes inspiring. One of those stories, when we first moved into serpentine and when we would do all this chanting in this hall here, there was one chant, there was a sharing of the four Brahma-wee-haras, you know, from the next quarter, third quarter, fourth quarter, up and down, all over to all beings. And because I knew enough, partly, I knew what I was chanting. Because I knew what I was chanting, it inspired me every time. And I couldn't get past the first, you know, sharing a meta and compassion. Sometimes I got to compassion, but just a meta. And I just had to stop chanting.
I remember, Jan Jakra asked me, he said, why do you stop? And I started to stop blissing out. And I'm not exaggerating there. What that was actually telling you to do, I was doing it. I was spreading this loving kindness to all the four quarters, up, down, all over the place, to all beings, no matter what. And it felt so beautiful, so delightful. And I said afterwards, I said, that's what the chant is supposed to be for, isn't it? It's actually to be evoking the truth of what those words are describing, the ability just to give this loving kindness all over the place. And so, you know, he agreed, and so it's only three or four months, so I actually take that off the chanting menu. So I just did it by myself, you know, when I needed to inspire myself.
So all those chanting are really important. But the main thing, we're in monastics for, and I hope you understand this, is to have the solitude, the peace, so we can disconnect from the world. How many people do you really feel get wise, grow in their spirituality, become enlightened, all the different stages, by being out there in the world, doing stuff. The world keeps on demanding your attention. It's not for one thing, it's for another thing, and then for another thing, and then for another thing. I remember Ajahn Shah telling me, be careful if you're going to run a forest monastery.
Because the danger of forest monasteries like this one, or Damasara, is that people start looking at these forest monasteries, and they start thinking, these are really good monks in these forest monasteries. You know, you don't hardly see them. Sometimes when people ask me at lunchtime, how many monks were in this monastery? And I tell them, honestly, I just don't know. I'm quite proud of not knowing how many monks are here. Because that means that many of you spend time in solitude, you come and get your food, and then you're off, you're gone. I think that's a beautiful thing, as long as you are spending that time in your huts or your rooms, wherever you're spending that time, enjoying the freedom of solitude. How many other people in this world have the opportunity to go into an ice quiet place and get used to staying alone?
You've got all the requirements, you've got your heart, the simple heart, you've got food, you've got some clothes, and you've got medicines in time of sickness, the four resources. What more do you need? When you understand simplicity, it does mean that you can have a sense of vivaker. And I'm just translating that, it's not the usual translation, as disconnecting, separation, being alone, disconnected from the world. The two types of vivaker, one leads to the other, first of all the kai vivaker, the seclusion of your body. You can do that here. Now after the meal, actually even before you even start eating the meal, many of you take your bowl back to your hut and you eat there, wash your bowl.
I remember so often when I go on retreats, that is the only time when I can really get into that type of solitude. When I just go into my cave, it really brings me food, I eat it, and then the bowl gets washed and I disappear. So you only spend, I don't know, maybe half an hour a day or 50 minutes a day, actually seeing anybody, even five minutes a day. Imagine what that's like. Imagine that there's no sum of you, I hope, when your meditation really starts taking off, you can spend six months alone, now getting into trouble saying this, you have to know what you're doing. Spend six months alone and like what I did so many years ago, not seeing another human being for six months. You know, saw animals and kangaroos and snakes and eagles, but never saw a human being for six months. And in my one meal a day, it was very healthy, no problem there at all. Imagine the type of meditation you do, you don't speak to anybody.
I did do some chanting I must confess, but I chanted not just house chants or blessing chants, I did a chant which meant so much for myself and that was the another luck in the sutra. It's a brilliant choice of a chant to do when you had a six month personal retreat, a real retreat, not asking anybody anything, because I had enough confidence, I knew what I was up to. And that retreat, that's sutra, and that's the luck in the sutra. That, you know, if these five kandas really were yours, if they were you, then you'd be able to ask them and tell them and train them to do what you wanted them to do. The body wouldn't need to be sick. You could just if it was yours, you could tell it. Find a way so it's always healthy. You can't do that. So a lot of times, I sometimes I have confidence in these teachings. So that a lot of time that's what I've done over these years. I can't control my health. So I let it go and it becomes really healthy. It seems to be illogical, but this is a very physical, this is what I was trained at as a theoretical physicist. At first it seems illogical, but you try it and it's real. And other times because you're not worrying, you're not afraid, then that allows much sickness to disappear. And as some people may criticize me for that, but I've seen those monks in those forests, those rishis in the forest.
They just sat there. If they got sick, you just go deep inside into the mind and come out afterwards and all those sickness. I don't know how it happens, but it does. You've seen that happen. You've got confidence in it. You're not afraid. So if ever you find I don't come out for breakfast or lunch and I just stay in my cave and I lock the door, please don't get out of chainsaw and try and saw the door down and find out what I'm up to inside. A lot of times you just be just meditating to overcome any sicknesses. And if you do die, it's a great place to leave me. What do you call those places where you store bodies? More salims. The most salims already there. It's already made. Just seal the door and leave me. And don't worry about what's going to happen to the monastery afterwards.
If you seal the door and actually I'm problems inside, it's amazing. There'll be so many
visitors and so many people making donations. I think that the monastery will be even more wealthy than it is now. Would that be true? One piece of me. Well, it's quite a lot, you know, to share. But anyway, that whole idea of disconnecting from the world. That is something which for many people they say, what are you doing that for? Aren't you supposed to care for others? Of course you do. And that's one of the best ways of caring to teach by example. That's one of the reasons why. Even when I did that, I will confess I felt a bit of guilt at first. I'm just enjoying myself. Just not teaching, not doing
any management, just sitting in my cave, not my cave in that hut. You get tired, you lay down and rest, you eat, meditate, rest and that was about it. Such a simple life.
And when you do that, I'm out of renunciation. Of course, it's not just the body which responds. It's a mind response as well. It also starts to renounce. It starts to renounce and disconnect what are all the things which you're connected to? What binds you? And maybe it's concerned about your family, your parents. Yes, we've got responsibilities towards our family. What are those responsibilities? Sometimes they are to inspire them enough to become stream winners. If we do that, basically our duty is done. And then they're going to be released from the Samsara sooner or later. So that's one of the best ways of doing that is to inspire. There's too many people to say want to help people like parents and brothers and sisters and friends. But how many know how to do that? A lot of the time just by meditating, becoming some good, virtuous person, becoming simple and just being peaceful. That's that story of that. Again, I don't know who the monk was.
I got the story from Adjunct Sujata. So if you want to find out, here's a one, two, go and ask about that Vietnamese monk who started to retreat, teaching a retreat. And after the first, well, he just started the meditation half an hour and his half an hour meditation lasted for eight days. He never talked at all. He just sat there. And I can understand this. He said afterwards, when he came out of his eight day, so stillness, he apologized. And all the people there, they said, no, no, no, no, no. That was really inspiring. Actually, to see what they heard in the old days happened can happen today. Sit there without needing to go to the toilet, without needing to drink, without needing to eat. Those sorts of things are real.
And we can talk about that. I talk about that. But actually, to see it and experience it
happening, that really makes a huge dhamma teaching for people who are lucky enough to witness it. So these are the sorts of things that if you really want to spread the dhamma, and all I should have said is, because I always keep asking you to help do a dragon boat blessing, or please go and do some chanting or a funeral, or a chanting bless people's houses. We kind of do that in order to keep the monastery surviving and other monetary surviving as well. But the main point of what we're supposed to be doing is actually becoming enlightened and showing that that is our best teachings. Teaching by example, there's so many other people in this world.
Even as people apparently, if you go online, you can see people who claim to be totally enlightened. And it's just anybody who's practising a good monastery, such as this or a dhamma sah, or the associated monasteries, know these people as just forwards. And it's not real enlightenment. We actually see the real thing, and that is impressive. And that's one of the reasons why that we encourage people to disconnect more. So we do this, meditate more, and that inspires people more than anything else in the whole world. You see a person, just you hardly see them. You go and look in their hut, and there's hardly anything there. Sometimes instead of thinking just what you want, you know, what do I need? What do I really need?
It's not much. It's kind of a shame that here in Australia, we can't do that old practice called Toodong in Thailand or Chaurika in Sri Lanka. This is a real practice. It actually is happening now. And I'm going to praise when Pasadika at this moment, because the last time I went over to Sri Lanka into Bandra Weila, he turned up, and he didn't get a lift to Bandra Weila. He had actually walked there. And actually in order to walk there, I think what's called a Sripada, sometimes it's called Absence Peak, was in his way. So he just walked up it and then walked down it. There was a kind of impressed by that. You know, he was living a simple life, and as simple as he possibly could, just having arms for it. He got a better lunch when he was with me in Bandra Weila because they got special food for me, but it was wonderful to actually see somebody going to a place like Sri Lanka and disconnecting from what I don't know where he is now.
He's somewhere in Sri Lanka. And it's nice that when they can go to these places and really disappear, it doesn't have a mobile phone. He couldn't see him as well, I don't think he has. And he can just have that confidence and faith that someone will feed him somewhere and be food which he can digest and live like a monk in the time of the Buddha. That's one of the reasons why I love reading those stories in the Teragata and the Teri Gata as well. Yes, people went through a lot of problems in solitude and renouncing and just disengaging from the world. They went through those problems, but once they did get into disengaging, they never wanted to go back again to engage with this world. Especially those of you who are as old as me or even older.
Do you really want to go back into that world? It's a crazy idea. It's just so complicated. You just even do anything. It's just really complicated. And I do travel a lot. And it's complicated. They keep asking me, can I have your mobile phone number? I don't have a mobile phone. I said, well, we can't tell you if the flight has been cancelled or changed or whatever. And I said, I'll find out somehow. And sometimes that's what happens. And so many people rely on those machines now. They make it harder for you to disconnect. You can. When you do disconnect, you get this wonderful sense. If you're not part of the world, you're not controlled. You can be free. If it gets, honestly, if it gets too difficult for me to travel to places, I'm going to stay here. This monitoring is very nice.
And some of you are very, actually, I'm feeling guilty saying this. Some of you helped me to set up a Zoom call or something for overseas or for interstate or whatever. So I make your life a little bit difficult. I'm sorry about that. But it does allow you not to have to travel, which is a wonderful thing. These days, there's plenty of opportunities to teach, not in person, but after a while, do you have to teach in person all the time?
Yet it's much better live, people say. Nevertheless, teachers, I'm sure Ajahn Chalk got more famous after he passed away than beforehand. They don't always need those live talks. So eventually, people really, really, really, really want to listen to a live talk.
They can always come, just like in the time of Ajahn Chalk. This recall some of those meetings once Ajahn Chalk started to become famous. What comes to my mind, I haven't said this for a while. When this guy from Sydney, he wanted to, he was busy. And so he went over to Thailand from Sydney to Bangkok, Bangkok to Ubon, and Ubon just got a taxi. I don't think even booked a hotel. And for a taxi from Ubon to Watbar Pong, to our season-point questions of Ajahn Chalk. He told me this story over here in Bodhinyana many years ago. He said he managed to get to Ajahn Chalk's hut. And there were so many people surrounding Ajahn Chalk. He waited a couple of hours. He wasn't getting any closer to ask his questions. All these other people were asking about their marriages and their finances and all sorts of worldly things.
He had these really deep questions to ask, this meditation master. And then he realised chances of getting close enough to ask these questions were zero. So he just got up and left really disappointed. And he did realise that he booked his taxi to take him back to the airport in about another hour. And he saw some of the monks sweeping. So he decided to do some sweeping. At least he could make some good karma while he was there. So that's when he told me he picked up a broom and started sweeping the grounds with all the other monks were sweeping. And that's when he felt a hand on his shoulder. As Ajahn Chalk had come out he was going to another appointment. He left the place underneath his hut and was going to roll the car to go to another monastery. He noticed this Australian man who just put his hand on this man's shoulder. The man turned around.
You can imagine what it's like you're thought he no chance at all of seeing Ajahn Chalk. And you come all this way just a flight from a Sydney to Bangkok to Ubon taxi to his monastery. Nothing else. And Ajahn Chalk told him something. He was translated for him. If you're going to sweep give it everything you've got. And that was all. Some of those one liners you see are just so important, so powerful. And that man did. He remembered those words. And he told me that he reflected on those words on the taxi ride back to the airport, on the flight back to Bangkok and the flight from Bangkok back to Sydney. He didn't spend more than a few hours in Thailand. And when he got back he said those words change his life so much.
Whatever he was doing. If he was on retreat, he gave the retreat everything he got. He
focused. He was a married man when he was with his family. He gave his family everything he got. And when he was working he gave the work everything he got. When he was driving from his home in Sydney to work he just focused on the drive. He gave driving everything he got. He trained his mind that way. And he was an amazing man. He gave a donation to this monastery but it wasn't everything he had. He had enough to get back home. But he was really inspired with such simple words. Just what it meant to him is a lay person. And it's the same. I remember that if ever I'm on retreat, if ever I've got time, I've got free evening. That's quite rare for me. If I have a free evening, you give everything you've got.
You get your cushion out, go in your hut, you go toilet first of all, you get the water to hydrate and you sit down and go for it. Give me everything you've got. Does not mean you strive. Because what striving meant for me, and it's just my understanding of that word, is that right, I'm going for this. I'm going to get this. Doesn't matter what stands in my way. I'm going for broke. I learned the error of that just so early on in my career as a monk. Actually, I learned that beforehand. My first waysack, 1970 in Cambridge. I remember was Dr. Sadatissa came up to conduct the waysack for the Buddhist society over in Cambridge.
I was an 18-year-old student. And as when I heard him say that the Buddha made that vow. Some of you have heard this before, but I just love saying this. Made of vow, even though my blood dries up and my bones turn to dust, I will not move from this seat until I have attained full enlightenment. I actually did that. I sat down on a cushion taken from the armchair. I sat down, I put the clock away, and I said, well, you know, I'm a smart kid. I got a scholarship up there. I'm not quite as good as the Buddha, but maybe up there somewhere. I sat down and made the resolution. My usual time in meditation comes about 25 minutes, 30 at a push. I made 40 minutes. I was in such agony.
And I opened my eyes and my blood was still wet and flowing through my veins. My bones had not turned to dust yet, and I certainly was not enlightened. That was like a wake-up call for me that striving was not just using power. I didn't have too much power. I didn't know really what I was up to. That kind of effort is much more subtle than just right. This is it. I'm going to sit no matter what. And some of the examples of that, it was one of my friends who was still alive, a monk. I'm like, so, who his name is? Bursiabha Vamondasriabha in the north of England. Many of your names were very nice, Monk. Anyway, he decided he was going to sit all night and not move. In a half-loat or a bermis bursiabha, I forget what it was, he sat there. He didn't move all night.
And when he got up in the morning, we had to take him to hospital, double knee reconstruction. I admire his endurance, but his wisdom was not strong at that time. But thank him for that, because I tell that story often, please don't do that. That's not the path. So the path, you know, this is why also I keep saying this. You know, the path is predicated on this eightfold path. And the second fact of the eightfold path, I think, is one of the most underrated, but most important. There are the three sankapas. The way I understand it, and I like it with anyone who wishes to waste time, that it's the right motivation where you're coming from when you practice. And if it's motivations of renunciation, you're not doing this to attain things like you do when you're at a university and get certificates. It's not actually to gain even greater abilities, greater strengths of mind. It's the renunciation, ability to let go, to have less, to disengage from the things of the world.
You don't sort of value your achievements by how much you've earned and how much you've got. It's just by how much you've lost, how much you don't need. It's one of the reasons I was going to mention in the idea of Tudom Chaga. And it's shame we can't do that over here in Australia. The towns and the villages are Buddhist are too far apart. But over in Thailand, you can just go and everything you own that you had on your back. And that got less and less and less and less. And sometimes I was surprised how little you needed to live. That's beautiful. That's why I was saying the venerable Prasadika doing that. It was just like a record, a sense of freedom having so few things. You just walk. It's all these that during the time of the Buddha, the monks, nuns. I said, did the nuns cook? Yes, some of them did in the early days.
You're bold in your robe and you just walk. You went from place to place like a bird with just a weight of its two wings. Just what a beautiful image that was. You try and do that the best you can even now. Just going to a place like Hong Kong, just taking my yarn. Yeah, it had a lot of stuff in it. Actually, I did a way. It was 3.8 kilos. That was all that needed to travel overseas. I kind of like that. A sense of freedom. A sense of being a real monk. And that's sometimes what I've done. Those are people who have traveled overseas. Sometimes when you go to these customs, they ask you, please, you've got to get your baggage first of all before you come through customs. I said, this is all the bags which I have.I remember in the early days, they said, why? Is that all you have? He said, yes, because I'm a monk. I remember going to places, I think, in Europe. They weren't Buddhist countries.
And I said, why? I had such few possessions. They said, oh, yeah, excellent. Well done.
Off you go. They will not check anything. People are inspired even though they may not be Buddhists. We have few possessions. What a beautiful, how light that is to carry. So, that's one of the reasons why I learned how to live with less when I was on Toodong, the Charica. And imagine what that's like. All your possessions. I didn't have a store of stuff in any of the monasteries in Thailand. I never told anybody, can you keep this for me? Now I need this when I come back. No, whatever you own, you took. And soon I got less and less and less. And a sense of freedom, renunciation, having little things to carry. And how wonderful that was in your meditation. You had few things you needed. You'd renounced. And at first they come with Sankapa to renounce. And if you renounce, of course, that's what happens. You find you don't need all this stuff.
And as you renounce and have less and less and less, you also have the non ill will Sankapa, a wire part of Sankapa, which I think is legitimate because a lot of times in Pali, non ill will, it's synonymous with meta, loving kindness. When I sort of saw that explained in some of the commentaries, and it was legitimate because that seemed to make sense from other suitors in the mainstream word of the Buddha. And I saw that last loving kindness and meta is such an important part of the eightfold path. Before, in order of the sati batana or the right striving or right effort, loving kindness. You're doing this out of care. Kindness is softness of the heart. I want you to feel the power of that. It just takes over. It's a beautiful way into deep meditation. Sometimes, I just can't see the difference between strong loving kindness and bliss. It's an ecstasy.
It's just, and that loving kindness when it gets to that level, it doesn't have an origin. In a sense of me doing this, you don't spread loving kindness. Just loving kindness is there. It doesn't go to any one particular person. It just goes to whatever's right in front of you. Even to the boots of car doors, which are locked, and it's the over on the back of the lovely memory I have of that. But that's how powerful these things are. The last one is the gentleness, the ahingsaka, not harming. And again, that's also a lovely beautiful idea. That's when you read about how the Buddha taught his son. His son, you know, being young when he became a novice monk, you can't sort of teach deeply. But you can teach simply and powerfully what he taught his son. Keep two precepts. I love those two precepts. Never doing anything which harms another living being.
Never doing anything which harms oneself, one's own body and mind. How beautiful that is and how simple. I remember even when I first came to Perth, and I was staying at our city center in Magnolia Street, and a bunch of kids from a school came to visit to do a learn about Buddhist and I was supposed to teach them. And so I just gave them those two precepts. And then I asked them just, what does that actually mean? Not harming oneself, not harming anybody else. With about ten minutes, all these kids, I think about nine or ten year olds, they got all the five precepts and a few more of the, some of the eight precepts too. And it just, it made sense to them. And that's actually some of the beautiful things. Instead of complicating precepts, we just keep it simple. That's just a way of renunciation and kindness and gentleness.
And that means when your mind is that peaceful, simple, unencumbered, unencumbered. Of course, what happens when you meditate? Even today people still ask me, just can you please tell me more detail how you meditate. Okay, what's the first step? What's the second step? What's the third step? What's the fourth step? And sometimes, come on, haven't you listened to, you know, what I've been teaching? Haven't you listened to what Aden Chah teaches? Haven't you listened to, well, read the sutures? How did the Buddha get into the first genre? You know, he was six or seven years old. He was a kid. Yeah, I mean, he would have got into the genres in his previous life under Casper than Buddha. But he didn't really remember this step, that step, another step. He just learned how to let go, how to renounce, how to be kind, how to be gentle, not forcing. I kind of like focusing on that example, a six or seven year old kid.
You know, I think it was the day to go to me, yes, but it was possible to get into these really amazing meditations just by learning how to let go fully. Of course, it helps when, you know, there's no one to let go off, you know, just this idea you have about who you think you are. And actually that was one of the other things which I taught such a long time ago, to understand non-self is not an argument, you know, to debate around a coffee table. What is non-self? Who do you take yourself to be? I found that much more powerful. Yeah, I did meet a couple of people when I was even a school teacher who were followers of Mahashi Yogi. He was, you know, he was a really good practitioner in India and his way of training was, you know, to keep asking, who am I? Who am I? Who am I? It kind of saw through that pretty quickly who am I is assuming you are something to try to find out what that thing is.
It counts as an assumption which was meant that you could not go deeper. What do you take yourself to be? It's more powerful. You're not assuming you are something. But what do you, in moment to moment, what do you assume, you know, this person who bears your name, you recognize when you're looking to move in the morning, who do you take yourself to be? And after a while, you keep just cutting away at that until there's nothing else you can take yourself to be. Basically, you just don't exist. You know what, there are all those things. You know, you can temporarily, you know, assume you're a monk or a nun that you are, you know, from Malaysia or from Wales or wherever. You know, you know you're not from Wales. It is this body that has some originations from Scotland or from wherever you are. That's not who you are.
You can take yourself to be that, but that's a bit stupid. And then after a while, why do you want to take yourself to be anybody? You can vanish. And when you do that, you don't need to own anything. You're disconnected from the past. All this stuff which, you know, where we think we're from, cultures. In Buddhism, the culture is just all that go off. Thai culture, Sri Lankan culture, Buddhist culture is just almost like zero. I mean, once you see that and practice that, then people recognize, oh, that's true Buddhist culture. Real Bhikkhuni, a real monk, a real practitioner. When you can start doing things like that, you just realize just how even to disconnect from traditions is really important. Why do you disconnect from them? Then you can practice them.
So I must like to just please other people who feed you and house you. So you're quite happy to do that, but you don't take it too seriously. That's one of the reasons why. Even just, where was it just a few days ago? Actually, it was over in Hong Kong teaching people about bowing, bow to do something useful with the bowing, whether it's a virtue, peace and compassion. I actually do that. And it means my virtue gets stronger. Every time I bow, I try to remember the importance of virtue, how powerful that is, how meaningful it is. I worship it. And I worship sort of, oh, peace, Christ. I worship that to the limits. That's the thing I'll probably worship more than anything else. Peace. Another thing I do is kindness. You can do wisdom if you wish. But those are gorgeous things which make this practice which you do really meaningful and powerful and easy to explain. Keeps it simple. And then these things grow and grow and grow and grow.
And it's just simple teachings. Simple teachings to be able to let go. A sense of self disappears and why do things happen? Where did my talk come from? It's dependently originated with all of the conditioning which I had. It's not me. Never will be. There's just no cause and effect. But it is a special cause and effect. This type of cause and effect allows all those other conditionings to cease. The only thing left is going to cease. It's not your choice. You can't decide to interfere. There's no eye in there to make those decisions. Your sense of self being a controller, being a doer, being somebody who knows things. Yeah, sometimes I know things, but then I go and forget them. It's a wonderful thing about being in your 70s. You're allowed to forget things. I wish I could have been 70 earlier. Why do I have to know people's names?
Sometimes you're looking at me and what's my name? I've got many names. None of them are real. So after a while you can actually just disconnect from the way of the world. Yeah, be alone. Be different. Be peaceful. And that means you become an inspiration. Honestly, sometimes, it's only sometimes when, like I was saying, I lunched on that lady, I was a Chinese lady. She came in with her boyfriend who was English into their subtle restaurant. I was having my lunch in the right time and she came in. She said, well, it's even in Hong Kong. It's a bit boring now. You saved my life. Oh, you're like a film star for me. Take your photos and stuff. Is that me? Of course it's not. This is just the dumber and the power of the dumber. The power of the dumber which really inspires people.
It inspires people so they go a bit nuts basically, but it's lovely to see. And that is the gorgeous part of it. Stuff which you can revere and see just what happens. It's a beautiful path. And I hope each one of you of those years disengages so much. Disengages so much. All these people just go bananas when they see the zerk. Any understanding? That's just how I remember just the king Paseinadi kissing the feet of the Buddha. He's a king with a both powerful ruler at that time in the whole of India.
And he was just kissing the feet. Would you do that? Maybe if they washed their feet first of all and just in fact then then he can kiss them. He'd catch something. Race those sides. Don't ever try that with me. Foot massage okay. Keep my lips away. I want to catch something from you.
But it's kind of cute. You know that actually did happen to me once. And I was sort of
mucking Thai then. And maybe about seven or eight years as a monk almost about to come to Australia. And in this monasterous, I remember that it's monitory what? Chon batan. That's Chau companion under some monastery. And when I was just walking there this American monk came up and just grabbed my feet and kissed him. He was a man. I was really embarrassed. And they told me who he was. That he was, ah, what's his name now? He was a monk with Ajahn Buddha Dasa. And for somehow rather he'd actually came to Thailand and wondered, he was a meditation teacher down there. He did retreats. And then somehow he met me and I told him, I think it was probably what Nanachal and I told him meditation.
And he loved it. And he said, he was kissing my feet in the middle of Bangkok, in the monastery. He said, out of gratitude, I was teaching him some really nice ways of meditating. You can understand that you can feel that if you saw an Ajahn Chau. You know you just want to grab his feet if he'd let you. Give him a big kiss. You don't care if he's going to catch something. It's worth it. That's how this dhamma feels. It gives you real meaning and this real sense of renunciation. And how beautiful that is. Not attaining anything but disappearing, giving up, letting go, vanishing, renouncing, ceasing. All these things going, things of the world are not really important.
Nothing is more important. Nothing at all. And that's one of the reasons why for those of you coming to this hall here, it's a very powerful hall, especially in the front. And we've struggled for so many years to keep the shrine as empty as possible. There's still people put things on it. But they get thrown away afterwards. Please celebrate less than more space is more important than things. So when you have a hall, please keep it empty. If you have a meditation little place in your hut, please keep that little corner of your hut empty. If you have a mind, keep it empty. Of past and of future, of craving, of wanting. And in that space, there you'll find freedom. I think I already spoken too much. So thank you all for listening. Thank you for listening. Thanks especially for the bikunis. We're traveling such a long way.
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