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So one request for the talk this evening was on urgency. Let's get this talk over quickly. What? Now be careful.Sometimes, I know there's that simile which is meditating like your turban's on fire, but we don't wear turban's here. Maybe like your beanies on fire, but there's a fire ban here. So that doesn't help either. But sometimes, to be urgent, you have to have a goal, a place you want to go to. If you're running fast, it must be for some reason behind that. And sometimes, that kind of didn't make much sense to me, because every time you tried to, very hard to do things, there was always these problems with that. Every time I tried to sit up and sit up late, I remember this one monk, he decided to try and meditate for 24 hours. So not to move, which is now a pretty hard thing to do. And he managed to complete that task, meditate for 24 hours without moving, but he's now no longer a monk.
I remember there's other monk who decided not to do 24 hours, but to do 12 hours all night without moving. And he managed to do that as well. And he ended up in a hospital with a double knee replacement, reconstruction, whatever it was. I remember there's one of these monks in England years ago. This is before Chitturst and Amalwati.
And he decided, now let's do it properly, he decided he read in a suitors, he can go out into the snow fields in the middle of the night, just with your three robes, not even with a beanie. And that should be enough. So he tried that. And in the morning, he had to go to hospital with pneumonia. So these are the oldest stories of people I know and people I've seen. And so why doesn't that work? Great endurance, but very little wisdom. In other words, you can be tough, really tough. And if you want to be tough, just remember one of these stories. He was told me by another monk.
He went to one of these public schools in the UK. And his father was like a commander. Not commander. He was the commander of a nuclear submarine in the British Navy. So he was very tough. But anyway, so he sent him to his public school,
which is a private school. Public schools means private in the UK. It means the other way around in the US. But anyway, so he went to a private school, which was a public school, they called it. And if you're still with me, well done. But one of his friends, his friends would always win these long distance running races, like Malathans. And they really thought he had something special. And he even went to these events, the youth events, international championships were running. And he would always be winning things. And they thought this was like an Olympic champion in the making. And then one day, there's an ordinary race. His friend lost a race. He didn't even just come close to winning.
And everyone was surprised. And they asked him afterwards, how come? You know, you lost. And he said at last I realized I never needed to win. Remember that statement? Stayed with me a long time. Stay me for even to today. You don't need to win. That's not what the race is all about. Or is it? Who wins anyway? All you do is have to go in another race and train harder. And run faster. And always just beating your PB, your personal best. Is that what Buddhism is all about? That urgency to just keep pushing and pushing and pushing. And do you do need that destination in the future in order to want something? I want to be somewhere. I want to go somewhere. I want to get something. I don't want this suffering to keep lasting. And you find the more you want that, the more you create, more pain and suffering for your future. So instead it comes to time, just like that friend of one of the monks, they decide, OK, no. I'm not going to try and compete or run anymore. I'm not going to just have that sense of, I must get there.
I must do something. So that's one of the reasons why we have this beautiful sense of learning how to be content, happy to be here. And now I won't repeat the full story here, but if you are happy to be here, whatever that is, however you feel, whatever desperate situation you're in, if you are happy to be here, there's a sense of your content. When you're content, you're at peace. When you're at peace, it means that you're safe. And I say that because you know all those stories in the suitors of monks just sitting so still that they cannot be harmed. I think I gave to one of you, or somebody anyway,that video of that monk, it wasn't a monk, a lay person.It was a very good meditator. You were getting into Jharnas really easily. And the Dr. Satanayaka, who was the leader of this group, did a video of him when he was meditating. And one of those videos was actually doing an incision on his arm with a knife, a scalpel, sorry. And the knife never went in. The skin was actually filmed.
And anyhow, remember they had all these demonstrations trying to prove this is real, in deep meditation. You can't penetrate the skin with even a sharp scalpel knife. One of the people over there thought, OK, that was just fake. He just had strong willpower. But what they did was really convinced this media personality who was investigating this rare phenomenon of somebody in deep meditation trying to be cut with a scalpel.
What they did was he said he had a feather, was in some place who were meditating, and they saw little feathers. So the TV personality, this was in Sri Lanka, put the feather up this monk's nose and twisted it around. And the man in deep meditation never moved. He said that was much more convincing than trying to cut the person with a scalpel. And he said, OK, maybe you can train yourself to withstand pain. But a feather up your nose, really itchy, he said no one could do that unless it really was deep meditation. So if ever you see any of the monks here in deep meditation, just get a feather and put up their nose and see if it's real or not. Now please don't do that.
Sorry?
All the person who don't have pain or something. You can get something somewhere else. And I said, OK. But anyhow, it is how a person can be peaceful and still is just first of all, you know you're safe in a special moment. That's one of the reasons why I tell those stories. And this is not just hearsay. You see the videos. It's talked about this a lot. You see, meet some of these other great beings, monks and stuff, and who can actually sit for days. And was that monk? I love talking about him. He was actually not a monk when he did this. Before he became a monk. It was interesting. So why did you do these things? A lot of times, the result of doing these deep meditations is you become a monk afterwards. This fellow in Java, he was Indonesian. He just sat meditation for six or seven days in a jungle. He was underwater for that time. He would know where he could breathe. And he's perfectly OK afterwards. And all of these sort of experiences kind of, I don't know about you, but they kind of inspire me. Especially when you meet that monk afterwards.
And you can talk with him. And I don't know. I think I'm not really that special. You feel they had incredible power. And he did do some of these weird strange things. He was a monk also had the laser eyes. It was good. One of the friends who went to a meditation class with him felt that someone was going on. So she opened her eyes. And saw these lights coming out from this monk's eyes into another person meditating there. And the result of that, when she got so scared of the power of this monk, she ran out of the room. This was in what were one in Thailand. And she ran out of the room and just on the hall when they're teaching meditation never went back again. It's quite scary. But nevertheless, those things actually happen. They do occur. And sometimes you wonder how on earth does that happen? The urgency. But the point is that these people are really safe in the sense that they don't have to worry about too much. So when you do experience some nice states of meditation and you're happy to be here, you don't have to be concerned of what's going to happen next.
It's a way of questioning that anxiety, which creates the future. I said that carefully. The anxiety, the worry, the concern. That actually makes a future almost exist. OK, now I'm going back to theoretical physics stuff. But it was amazing just how we do create future scenarios. I mean, much more than you can ever expect. And because of that, it just concurs with some of the Buddhist teachings. If you want to have a happy future, then have a happy present where the future is being made. And this is not just the saying for lay people during guided meditations. This is a saying for monks as well. If you thank you. If you want those to ghost. Do you believe in ghosts? I know somebody asked me to tell them a ghost story. Do you want to hear it? OK, I won't. No? Yes. OK. Now this was one of the real ones. What if somebody asked me this? I think this was just after lunch one day. That was the one. There was a monk over in the northeast of Thailand called Ajahn Sawat. He passed away now. That's why I don't mind saying these stories.
And a monastery called Tamsi Gao. And he was one of Ajahn Man's disciples in a very big monastery. And in a monastery was a cave where he would actually had a kutti when I was there. But apparently there were some lights in that cave. This wasn't ghosts. This was, he said, was heavenly beings in that cave. But anyway, I stayed during the apostid a day. I always thought that was really important to try and find a monastery on apostid a day to do the party mocha, the recitation of our walls. And also they would also just stay up late at night that night meditating. So that evening, after meditating, I asked him just, I'm going to be walking the next two days from his monastery to the place called Sakonakon. And does he know a nice, like cave in these mountains about halfway? Because that would be a wonderful place to rest at night. Instead of resting in villages or resting just under a tree. I just love caves. And that's when he told me about this cave.
He said, but be careful. I hope your practice is good. Because some of his own monks had gone there and gone crazy in that cave. He said there was a spirit, a ghost in that cave who was very aggressive. And he know that at that time, hopefully, you don't say I have to possess this arrogance. I thought, wow. This was one of our young monks' disciples telling me about a dangerous ghost in the cave. I want to go there. I remember just going there. And when I went in the cave, the lay person who took me to it, I went to the village and saw the lay person. He said, oh, you hit this cave. It's this cave that Adon saw one is talking about. When I went into it, one of these very, very beautiful old statues of the Buddha, these days, I would be priceless. I don't know how many hundreds of years old they were. But anyway, and there's a little bench there where you could sit and meditate because that's how so what's monks would sometimes, not that often, apparently, these days, would use that cave. And it was a spring outside. It was beautiful water for bathing and for drinking.
So it was a perfect situation about a kilometer away from the village. So when I went in there into that cave, as soon as I got settled, the lay person just went as soon as he could because he was scared. And he did say, deep inside the cave, I didn't really have any lights to explore the cave. And it was really basically its onset. And he said, there's a skeleton inside the cave.If you go deeper inside, I never explored it. But I realized that that was probably the source of the ghost. So anyway, I went in the cave, sat meditation. And I sat meditation even though I was tired because I wanted to wait for the ghost. A dangerous ghost. I'm a monk. I was keeping my precepts of good meditation. I should be good enough there to see the ghost and have another story to tell, I suppose. And I did get a story to tell. Because when I was there, I was waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting, meditating. I didn't want to go into deep meditation.
I just wanted to be alert. And after about three hours or something,
then of course I was tired of being walking all day in the heat and near through the mountains. And then I said, OK, there must be no ghost here. So that's when I decided to lay down. I don't know why these things happen. Always when you're about to lay down. And it was almost immediately after my, it wasn't a pillow I had. It was just my folded sangatia used as a pillow. As soon as my head touched that folded sangatia, I could hear something running towards me, very loud, very clear. And this was not from outside the cave. It was from inside the cave. And my response, and that was obviously the ghost, or the spirit, whatever you wish to call it. But quite honestly, if you haven't heard this story, I was really offended. I was saying, look, I've been waiting for you for about three or four hours. And now you want to come? Get out of here. You're being disrespectful. Honestly, that's how I felt. And so I just went to sleep. Almost immediately, I was very tired. I don't know what that ghost thought of me.
But I hope that ghost learnt that in the future, you should show some respect amongst.
It was a Thai ghost after all. Anyway, that was a ghost story in the middle of Poopan district. And all this time, whenever you do these kinds of meditations, maybe the reason I didn't feel scared is I felt perfectly safe. You know, these ghosts and spirits are supposed to be lower beings, lower forms of being. And human beings are much higher. You know, in the scheme of the cosmology, which the Buddha taught, not only that, but I was like a monk. And I keep you in my precepts really well. And just living a very simple life. And so I thought there's much more power in me than any ghost.
But anyway, that meant there was no fear there at all. And I also just went, I think it was Ajahn, Charles' mother, died. And of course, they burnt her in the cremation just outside what Poopan was going to do. So there was a bee, a ceremony there, lighting the fire. But as soon as the fire was lit, then everybody went inside what Poopan was inside.
It was a bit at the evening. So it was dark. And it was under Ajahn, Charles' heart just talking with Ajahn, Charles. His mother had just been cremated. And Ajahn, Charles said to me, do you want to go out and sit by the fire? And I said, yeah, sure. Because he invited me. I said, why not? And I was meant to go there alone. Or within the other months. I didn't mind. And then all the other months were teasing me. I said, you want to go there alone? Yeah. But the reason why I was not bothered by being teased, they gave me another cup of coffee every time I said, yeah, I'm going. And so I had so much cups of coffee I had to go out. And then they said, aren't you scared? So why should I be scared? At that particular time, I couldn't understand tying that well. So if the ghost comes, I won't be able to understand her. And they thought, I don't know.
They gave me another cup of coffee. I think they thought I was crazy, not brave. But anyway, it was not a war. I never saw her.
But nevertheless, the urgency there, there was no sense of urgency. There was no sense of fear. There was no real goal, no where I wanted to be, no where I wanted to get to, nothing I wanted to get rid of that evening. So because of that, the sense of urgency, I mean, I thought about that afterwards. But why did the Buddha say and praise his sense of urgency? Isn't that going to be counterproductive? Isn't that going to stress you out? Isn't that going to make you tired? Isn't that going to... The sense of urgency, which I understood of that idea, was actually too much willpower and too much sense of self and too much sense of achievement. And I know that many people would love that sense of urgency because that's how people in the Western world have been trained. Here is the goal, how wonderful it is to get to this goal. I think the only way to get there is to try hard, to put your effort and energy into doing this. And Western people are very good at putting energy and effort into doing things.
As many monks here are just amazed as how hard you can work. But is that what works in the practice of the Eightfold Path? Even with the sense of right effort. There was always one. I think that was the first question which I asked Adjensumato about. What is your effort? I can't understand that the responsible effort and strive. Isn't that just another form of craving, wanting? It wanted to become enlightened. At that time I had no idea what enlightenment meant. No real idea, no real understanding of what I was aiming for. Where I was going. It was like running fast but not really understanding which direction I was going. He had a bit of trust in the teachings he knew and heard.
But honestly, that trust is very, very dangerous because it wasn't really with wisdom. Many people trusted all sorts of weird teachings. So, like I was saying about really just sitting down meditating all night through force. So, having seen the results of that with my friends, I decided that there's something wrong with this right effort. And when you look at that right effort, it's mostly about restraining.
You know, restraining your senses. Not allowing sort of bad states of mind to come up. And it's not cultivating negative states. And just cultivating the good states of mind, the positive states of mind, like stillness and joy. And dare I say it, like happiness. And when you actually started reading in the sutures, that in monasteries in the time of the Buddha, people were happy. They were happy with one another. Okay. Because I've given a talk here almost every week and here and another one over in another couple over in Nolamara on the weekend, I'm sure that all my stories and anecdotes you've heard so many times. So, if I keep repeating myself, I do apologize. But I give more talks than you can actually get examples from your life. I've only been in life 72 years.
That's not that long. Is it? And anyhow, just that was the story of these two monks having an argument over in Chittas monastery many years ago. And it was one of these, the two people who were arguing. One of them was this ex-US Marine who'd been shot in the back of the head in Vietnam. And he had this big, like, was it concave depression in the back of his head? Remember, his was a young man and quite sort of rebellious.
You know, he was at one of these demonstrations against the government. I think he said in Youngstown, Ohio, where they faced off against the National Guard. And that as we were facing off, you know, that he did get hit with the tranction. So he went to the medical people there. And as soon as they saw this, like, depression in the back of his head, they thought, oh, my goodness, we're going to get you to the hospital straight You've been, you know, really hitting the back of the head and your skulls being caved in. But he said, no, no, no. That particular injury was in Vietnam. He was a tough guy, really tough. You know, he said he actually, because I knew him very well. And this extra little bit about Adjan and Ando, that, you know, he was a very tough guy, one of the toughest guys in the monastery. And one day when he was doing some chanting, he chanted his first, they call it the first to invite the heavenly beings to attend the chanting. And he did it so beautifully. And the other monks criticized him. And they said, what things about him? He not supposed to chant beautifully. And we're forest monks. We're supposed to chant out of tune.
At least that's what we do here. Sometimes, no, you're very good to try. Sorry, I shouldn't criticize you like that. You can't beautifully thank you. It's me who's usually out of tune. I'm an old monk, I shouldn't need to chant him at 72. But nevertheless, even, how else make Jack an' now? Does he still sing or does he lip-sick? No, he's still.
Good as gracious. Anyhow, how do you know? Yeah, well, you're there. OK, don't confess. So anyhow, just where was this?Ananda, it is beautiful chanting. And all you see to him is, no, don't do it right there. We're forest monks. We shouldn't do it that way. And I was the only one who I just waited for him. And he looked so, he put so much effort into it. And he looked so depressed afterwards. And he really, really, was really fed up. After all that effort, and I went up to him and said, very quickly, if I was a heavenly being, I would have come. And that just, from that moment, he was my best friend. It was amazing. There was a tiny bit of kindness. I saw its effect. And so he would tell me all about his time before he went to Vietnam.
And he was born in Buffalo in New York State, up in New York State. And he said he joined street gangs. And he said, no, how was life when it was young? They would go around with motorbike chains beating people up. That's terrible. He said he called it playing for keeps with other gangs. And he said he joined the US Marines. He volunteered in order to get tougher. He wasn't drafted. He actually joined, volunteered.
And he said that when he was in Vietnam, he was laughing at one of his friends, another Marine, in a firefight. He was shot in his foot. And because of that wound, it was called like a million dollar wound. He would maybe hobble for the rest of his life,
but he would have a pension for the rest of his life and be respected. It hurt like hell, but still, he was out of the army safe. And as he was laughing at his friend, he wasn't aware, not mindful, not careful. And so he took a bullet in the back of the head.
And the pain of that was not that great.
But nevertheless, it was life threatening. So he got evacuated. It was very lucky to be evacuated early. But I was being evacuated into the helicopter, another sort of like mortar bomb hit the ground very close to the helicopter. And shrapnel went through his body and flung him against the helicopter wall. And he thought that that was it, he was going to die. I remember him telling me at that point, I was very painful. It hurt so much that it didn't matter. I remember that's what he said. And that's the best thing which ever happened to him. Because once he was in hospital, they managed to do surgery. And they put the advantages over his brain and eyes. And they said that where the part of the brain they had to surgically remove, because it was all damaged,
was a part which processed seeing. So they told him, when you're a marine, you're tough. We just tell you, when you recover, you'll be able to walk and talk and eat. But you won't be able to see again. You'll be blind. And I remember him saying, just because of that injury, he said as soon as he could, now, once he was out of the hospital, out of the military, he would just commit suicide.
He said, what's life worth with a body which is not basically complete. But when they took the bandages off, he could see. That's what he thought. And that gave him an out of big pension. Otherwise, it's quite healthy. And he was the one, I think I mentioned this to you, the one day, he didn't have anything to do, didn't need to get a job or anything. The pension was about $1,000 a month. And I was in, I don't know, 1969 or something. And so what he was doing was just playing basketball. And I saw baseball with his friends. And someone hit the board in his direction. I remember him describing this easy catch. But as the ball was coming towards him, it vanished. It disappeared. And then it reappeared again a couple of seconds later. He had a blind spot. I love the way he described that, because that's why I tell the story about him, this part of the story, that you can't see blind spots. What happens is, know your mind. It fills in the gaps as what you think should be there. So if it's a cloud, it doesn't see like a hole in the cloud.
Does the mind just continues like painting what should be there? And because that ball was moving and it was unexpected, that his mind wasn't quick enough to fill in the trajectory of the ball. So there was a black spot there. And that was the blind spot. And I love that similarly, because if you have any delusion in you things you can't see, you don't know it's there. And it kind of surprises you. You think you're intelligent. You think you're logical. You think you're experienced. But sometimes his blind spots, you can sort of see them through the influence that things don't just disappear like that. Something's happening. And I thank him for that little teaching he gave me to understand what our weager is. Delusion. Your mind will fill in to see what it wants to see, what should be there. Gets rid of things which should not be there. And those experiences in life just make some of the teachings in the books much more understandable.
But also the teaching in life he was a really tough guy and became a good friend. And apparently after I was in Australia,he went to help in Chithurst. And another person who was staying there was this Jewish real estate millionaire, who again he renounced to and became a monk. Remember what he did when I think it was an anagarita, because he was going to be wealthy. He used to go down into the clubs in Soho, gambling. And when he was still, he was an anagaric. He should never do this. But he went into one of those clubs. They all reminded me of him, hey, what are you doing here? Where you got a bald head? He was an anagaric. And he did. I said, just to sniff the But he told me he never gambled after this. I mean, he was keeping the precepts. But anyway, he was a tough guy, another tough guy. And they had some sort of argument.
And the two of them were facing up against each other. And the Chicago real estate millionaire. And the ex-U.S. Marine, who'd been wounded and had a bit of his brain missing.
And the two were facing up to each other in an argument. It was getting worse and worse and worse. And if they had a fight, it would be very clear that the Adjana Nando would win it, because it was incredibly tough. But apparently, the marks were just so impressed when they saw these two. And Adjana Nando just stopped arguing and dropped to the ground on his knees, put his hands up. Even though I think Adjana Nando was senior,got his hands, his doctor his knees, put his hands up, and say, I forgive you. Please forgive me. And apparently, the US was a real estate millionaire from Chicago. Also fell on his knees. And they hugged and cried. I wish I was there or someone had videoed it, but they didn't have those mobile phones in those days. Because it was a beautiful way of solving a difficult problem, which could have so easily been so violent and people got really hurt. I wish I saw that here, if I was someone having any argument with somebody. It doesn't matter who is senior. The wisest one is the one who drops the knees first and one and say, please forgive me.
And they'd say it was with sincerity. It was a love to the friendship of Adjana Nando. Even though he could be really tough with others, he was always soft as anything for myself. And he died eventually. The cancer took over. The cancer, because they said that would probably happen because of the wound having to take so much of the brain out, you'd probably get a tumour in the future. And that's what happened and killed him. But nevertheless, he was a really good friend. And also, in a sense of urgency, just instead of winning the fight, you lose it, losing things. So how can you be urgent losing things? Sometimes, imagine it's the art of disappearing, how to lose things. Instead of having destinations, you don't want to get to. How about losing those destinations? And if you lose those destinations, you are nowhere to go, nowhere to be, nothing to become. Why can you have any urgency? It's like learning how to learn from this moment, how to accept, embrace, opening the door of your heart to this very, very moment.
However it is, however it feels. It's like a test when things go difficult, when you don't sleep at night, or you have a great pain, or a great scare, and things don't go well at all. Nobody likes you. Now people want to get rid of you or whatever. Imagine what it's like when you open the door of your heart to those times and learn from it. That's why sometimes you can always see the positive side to any experience in your life. Honestly, sometimes there's times that after the bikuni ordination, when I was summoned to walk by Paul, and there you were in that monastery, it was just before the katina ceremony. That's why I had so many people there. And for three hours, they were just almost like I had no friends at all. It was about maybe 600 mucks. And they were all trying to get rid of me. And I thought, no, I wasn't scared, I was ashamed, I'm upset, because I knew that you had done nothing wrong. And I was kind of proud of what I did. Proud not in the sense of how I did. But realizing I was doing a good thing, something I would really want you to do, I knew was right.
So I never got upset. You could always see the good in it, even though you got banned from many of those places where you had lots and lots of really nice friends and good experiences in the past. So you always find some good in anything, whatever happens to you. Even, I was just talking about this earlier, even if you become the head monk, you could always see something good in it. Can you? I get first choice of the food, I suppose. Is that good? No. OK. I get a cave. That's pretty good. I love that cave where I live. It brings me back to that sense, you don't need anything. You're happy to be here. There's nothing in that cave. So few possessions, all you have in there is, actually I do have a lot of stuff in there. I have a lot of peace, a lot of solitude, a lot of times I can just be in thereand I don't want anything in the whole world. Just be peaceful, sit quietly. And I don't try, you all know this. When I sit meditation, I don't try and get into jhanas.
I don't try and do anything. You just disappear. Let go this moment. I'm just going to be here. I'm not going to want anything. This moment has already arrived anyway. I'm not going to try and change it. I'm going to learn from it. Be with it. Open the door of my heart to this moment. This experience, whatever it is, empress free questions, whatever you're aware of now is the most important in the whole world. So be aware of it right now and care for it. There's beautiful teachings and that's how I practice in my cave, caring for this moment. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.Doesn't? So there's always something which works. You're building up the energy of renunciation by doing nothing, by just being there and caring for this moment. And then you keep on caring for this moment. That's why you can be with each one of you, whoever you are.
Be caring for it. Be in here. And learning from this moment. And you get so much energy of this practice of eightfold path. When I see all these factors of the eightfold path, really get into them, understanding them.
And it's practicing them. You see all of that renunciation, letting go, giving up, nay-kammer. That's a party word to announce. Right next to a way apart of it is a sin and information, loving kindness and gentleness. How can you have gentleness and urgency at the same time? That gentleness is that third factor of the second part of the eightfold path. The second factor, the eightfold path, the third factor of the second factor. And when you see that and understand that, eventually you have confidence, confidence, that faith, that this is the path. It's a very gentle path, a very soft path. And other people might think you're just giving up. But you know that this really works. You can sit in your heart or in your cave or wherever you're sitting. Sometimes people call it let go. You're letting go because you're not doing stuff from your sense of self. Your sense of self, your ego is what does things. And the more you do, the stronger that ego becomes. That's why those people who do a lot and achieve a lot, they've got a huge ego. That's why if you're a failure, wow, you've got a great chance because fairly you lose things, things vanish.
You think, what I really almost kill myself for, trying so hard. If you do it gently, do it slowly, then you always come to the goal, which is peace, contentment, no wanting, craving to stop it, ceasing, being at peace. When it comes to what are we doing to other people? How do I teach? How do I practice? And sometimes you get what is incredible comments from people. They're usually very positive. Even the chanting which you do out of key, yes, but that's not the point. It's where it comes from inside, the kindness. And that just travels with the chance into people's ears, into their bodies, heels, into their minds. It's beautiful stuff. And just so often, I mentioned this one of the nicest things which happened last Saturday. It was last Saturday when I was in Nolamala. And in meditation in the afternoon, there was that young boy, Mr. Beer, who was the one who came so close to dying. He came to Nolamala, sent to the meditation class on Saturday afternoon, wearing what I thought was a bicycle helmet.
People wear on a bike on the road, you're going to wear something on your head that's otherwise illegal. He wore a little motorbike, a bicycle helmet on his head. And I said what that was, and he said, it's not a bicycle helmet. He asked to wear that because part of his skull is missing. Because of the injury they had to take part of the skull off. And he said, where is it? It's in the fridge. I said, like the way it's just in the fridge, like the milk is in the fridge or the orange juice is in the fridge, you know, to preserve it. And he said they're going to have to put it back later on when the sweating in this brain goes down. But he was so happy and he said, I come here just to thank you guys in the monastery for chanting for me. I'm sure if you look at the book over there, you find his name is in there. We're trying to for him for a long time.
He said that worked. That really did work. The other thing, I can't resist saying this. Please excuse me, Adjut Appi. He was in sort of like a deep coma for a long time.
And the thing which brought him out of the coma was the smell of a hamburger. Not a fruit. He could smell that and just in a tragedy. And so it just brought him back. So if ever I'm in a coma, Adjut Appi, just get a sausage and wave the sautches every night. And if you wave a fruit, I'm out of hereAnd that's, I remember one of the other ladies who was in a coma. And she was, what brought her out was actually the chiming of a temple bell. Another way she's presented that story, she said she was basically in this really deep, dark space, didn't know where it was. And she had his temple bell chiming. And that brought her back into her body, just in time because her children were discussing with the doctor whether to turn off the light support machine. The doctor said she's gone. There's no possibility of her surviving. Shall we turn off the machine? She had three sons and two of them, the youngest, who said, don't ask us.
He said, the eldest son, his responsibility. She said, no, you can't let me decide this by myself. No, it's your responsibility because they were scared.
You know, saying turn off the machine. You know, it's killing their mum. So the eldest son, and she was hearing this discussion apparently, she could hear, but she couldn't do anything. So she told her, so the eldest, she was like, wishing, son, I'm still here, don't turn off the light support.That's how she was thinking, but she couldn't make herself heard or express herself. She was just coming out of a coma. And she hadn't got any control over her body yet. So the son, he thought and said, give her one more day. And the mother, thank you son, I love you so much. That's how she thought. And then, during the next 24 hours, before they turn off the machine, she could start to wiggle her toes. And the daughter, she's not really gone yet. And she started the long process of recovery. So she could talk and walk. It's a wonderful lady. I love that story.
Just in that what brings you out of coma, something which can sometimes bring you out of deep meditation. Just some of the sensory objects which you find safe and pleasant can bring you out. And anyway, that's about the urgency.
Sometimes, kind of don't buy internet. Sometimes, if urgency means getting to your cushion and then stopping, letting go or doing anything, caring maybe, and giving yourself enough time, urgent to get back to your rooms, urgent to get back to your cushions, urgent to investigate, but not just urgent to get things, urgent to let go and vanish and disappear. I hope that makes sense. I hope that you can go. So I've got no money.
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