The idea of mindfulness in Buddhism is this awareness, alertness, being right here so you can see, you can know, you can feel what's going on. But for many people, they may be here, but not fully engaged in life as it happens. They're mindful, but not powerfully so, and because of that we miss so much of what's happening in life. We miss even just the talks because we are half somewhere else. I read in TIME magazine some years ago: they did a survey of people who were listening to talks such as this in auditoriums, and they found that when people were listening to talks such as this, only about five percent were actually paying attention, the rest, the ninety-five percent, were thinking sexual fantasies. Well, I hope that's not happening here. Remember, some monks can read minds. Be careful… But when you're actually paying attention, it's amazing what you can pick up. I've called this total listening, because we use that power and that focus not just in our meditation, we train it in our meditation, but we use it in our ordinary daily lives. When someone is speaking to you, if you know how to totally listen, you're right there with them, with all of your senses open to all the information which they are passing on to you. It's not just the words, but it's the intonation of the words, it's what's between the words. It's how it's spoken, it's the body language, it's the way the eyes look, the way the body is erect or hunched. Each one of these gives us information, which is part of the package which too often we miss. And because of that someone can speak to us and we just don't hear them. They can be with us and we don't see them. They can touch us and we don't feel because we're not fully there. We're not totally engaged in the moment. For those of you who've had problems in your relationships, who've had trouble with your partners. Why? Have they really been listening? Have you been really there, totally engaged in the moment when they're trying to say something to you? Too often as you know the problem is the other person isn't totally listening, they're half somewhere else, or more likely ninety percent somewhere else. And this is the reason why we just don't hear, we don't know. We can have lived with someone for many many years and we still don't get it because all those years we've never really been totally listening. If you're in business, I've been teaching this, total listening, to people in business. Recently, about ten days ago, I was giving a session at the 11th International Human Resources Conference in Singapore, and there was one of my little parts which I did, to teach people how to totally listen, to tell them that when someone is speaking to you, open your minds and your hearts and your ears everything completely to them. Then you'll always have faithful customers. Clients will know that their needs are being listened to. The other people working with you, you'll be getting the information from them from how they're doing, how they're going. You won't make so many mistakes. The business, the company, whatever, your work in your office will become more harmonious because you're communicating with each other, you're being with each other, you're totally listening when someone else is speaking. But even more than that, life is always teaching us in every moment. There's so many experiences which we have in life, which can be key experiences, where it opens our heart and it opens our mind. But too often in life, when life is teaching us, we're not listening, we're somewhere else. That is such a huge problem. So then we learn how to totally listen with this great mindfulness, putting everything into this moment, all our attention into what's happening, you find, not only do you get happiness and energy, but because you're totally engaged, you get insight, wisdom. This insight and wisdom is not something which is only for sort of deep meditators, it is not only for those people who've got great spiritual qualities, it is not just for people who live in forest monasteries for year after year after year. The truth is just there waiting to be heard or seen. It's just people are just too dull. They're never really here when life is teaching them about enlightenment, and because of that we don't see it. And life passes us by. We need to deeply engage with the moment, to be right here, to learn how to totally listen, even to our bodies.
It's a strange thing with these bodies. They're, you're right there inside of them, you can't get away from them, they're there with you every day. But too often people just don't listen to what the body tells them. I don't know, this is my theory, I'm not a doctor, but I'm a meditator who has been mindful for a long time, and I know that when my body is about to get sick, it tells me. It gives me many warnings, saying slow down, take a rest, take it easy. I listen to that body. Recently I had some food poisoning, and during the night time I was getting up, I wasn't vomiting or feeling sick, I had a sore tummy, but I just couldn't stop drinking water, I was always thirsty. And of course, the following morning the doctor rang up, one of my disciples, and said yeah, you know that in those conditions like that you should drink lots of water, and I said you didn't need to tell me, doctor, because I've been doing that all night. That's what my body told me. But even earlier on, when I decided to go on my first pilgrimage to India, this was when I was still a student, in 1972 or something, and I travelled overland from London, and I was doing really well until I got into Pakistan, and there I had some sort of curry, you never know what's in the curries in Pakistan, and it was one of those bad curries, and so I had terrible diarrhoea, and as soon as I got over the border into India, just found a hotel, any hotel would do, and just sat on the toilet for the next two days. And I'd, I was only nine… twenty-one or twenty something, I didn't know much about health in those days. But you know that I was just sitting in the hotel, the first time I left that hotel room, it was only a cheap hotel, I just went to a shop to get some salt, I would just crave salt. And every doctor knows these days that when you have diarrhoea, you know when you're not eating, you lose all your body salts. I didn't know that, it was just I felt my body and the body said get some salt, so I did, and I just ate handfuls of it. It was really weird: It was only later you realized that my body was telling me take some salt and I was paying attention, that's what I did. And so this body will tell you, if you listen, what it needs, whether it needs salt or it needs some other vitamins or whatever else it requires. It will tell you if it needs a rest, it will tell you if it needs exercise so please listen to this body. If you don't, you can end up very sick, whether it's heart disease, cancers, whatever else happens. The body will give you plenty of warnings. But sometimes we don't heed those warnings, we do not really here when the alarms clocks go off, we're too busy doing something else. That's why total listening, putting energy into this moment would actually open your eyes, your ears, your feelings to the alarm bells of ill health and usually you find you'll be able to avoid those problems. I'm very amazed that some of these very ancient monks which I have seen. Even here at our conference we've got one monk who is eighty-five, Dhammavihari, very very clear mind, but that's just a youngster in Buddhist tradition. Some of these monks, there was a Cambodian monk, a hundred and six, travelling all over the world, sort of giving talks. When I was in Singapore for an inauguration for the abbot in one of the monasteries, this Chinese monk, he's about a hundred and two. Just walked up the stairs, as steep as this, onto the stage and gave a talk, unaided, without any walking sticks. It's pretty good for a hundred and two. And there's many others of these ancient monks. There's one monk many of you know, Ajahn Nyanadhammo, who is staying in a new monastery. He used to be my second monk. He's been here many times before. He was staying in a monastery in the Cow Yay district of Thailand, that's ... where is that?... a little to the north-east, it's not really in the north-east, it's just a little north a little east of Bangkok. And there in this monastery he steadied up, this monk walked down from the mountain somewhere. And this monk has been a monk for about a hundred years. He's about a hundred and two also, and he still walks up and down the mountains. No one knows actually too much about where he lives, but he's really interesting, fascinating. Monks have been meditating for eighty years in the mountains, very cool, those type of monks. Really humble. Because one of my monks was staying there, he's maybe only been a monk four or five years. and this monk comes along, this eighty-year-old monk, and bows to him and says, you must have ordained late, how many years have you been a monk, because usually our seniority is how many years you've been a monk. So this young monk from my monastery said, I've been a monk for four years, how about you? Eighty. Ah, you're so senior! And these monks are like walking unaided, completely fit, which makes no sense at all in such a harsh environment, without any medical attention, can get such fit and healthy and aged people, Why? I really do believe it's because, when you learn how to meditate, you really get your mind very very strong. You become very alert and very awake, so you know what the body is doing and usually take preventative measures when there is still the time. And so because of that you're developing this total listening to your body, understanding what it needs and when it needs it. You're developing this total listening to life, understanding what's needed and when it's needed. So not only you live a long time, but also you're becoming very very successful. I'm not a businessman, but I'm a pretty successful monk. We've done pretty well over these years, listening to people, not what they say, but where they're saying it from, not just the words, but what comes from underneath those words. That's what we listen to with total listening. And it's not just listening to our body, and we do listen to our mind as well and find out to keep a healthy mind, because if you have a healthy body which is very very fit... I don't know if any of you noticed that Ben Cousins was outside. He's a very well-known person because he played for the Eagles. I remember meeting him some time ago in a radio show. I was trying to teach him how to levitate through meditation so he can catch the ball much easier; and that's actually why the Eagles are doing so well these days. But, there we go, there's the person, you learn how to focus, put energy into the moment so they commit themselves in every moment, they're successful. And these are things which you can learn here, just by learning why that saying of Ajahn Chah “Whatever you do, put everything into this moment. Full attention, full energy.” That's why that sometimes you teach children going to school, and their parents drag them to the temple because they want sort of teach them Buddhism, they want to teach them meditation, they want to get them on the right path, and they come up to me and I tell them, yeah remember what Ajahn Chah said, whatever you do give it everything you've got. So if you party, party hard, And then the parents look at me and say Ah, I'm not going to take our children to Ajahn Brahm any more, I said no but party hard, when it's time to study put everything into your studies; when it's time to sleep, for goodness' sake, sleep well. Why is it that so many people just have tiredness because they don't know how to sleep at night. Why can't you sleep at night? A lot of times because you keep carrying the past into your bed and you keep dragging your future under your blankets as well. Please, if you can just learn a little bit of present moment awareness, it's just so easy to go to sleep at night. You just lay down there, in the moment, when you're in the moment, there's nothing to worry you at all. And if you want to go to sleep, that's not being in the moment, that's going off into the future, I want to be asleep some time in the next moment. If you're worried about “Oh, I've got to get up in a few moments, I'm going to be tired,” that's worrying about the future. Please, let go of future and past when you go to bed at night. This is rest time, not work time. Learn how to be in the moment, with no desires, just laying down there, in your nice bed.
For me, because you have very few luxuries in a monastery of our tradition, the beds are one of the most luxurious places to be. Sometimes you have to sit for long periods of time and your legs get sore, your back starts to ache, but when you lay down, nothing aches. Everything is rested. So was the one time when I was having a hard time going to sleep at night, and I cured my insomnia, it wasn't really that bad, by thinking, why do I want to go to sleep, why waste this wonderful opportunity to enjoy just laying in my nice bed, under the warm covers. Isn't it nice when you wake up in the morning? Isn't it one of the most comfortable places to be, your bed just before you have to get up? Isn't it a wonderful feeling, one of the best feelings of lying just laying there for another ten minutes before we have to get up? Only ten minutes? Why not make it a wonderful eight hours before you have to get up? I'm not going to waste a moment of this, I'm just going to enjoy every part of being in bed. And of course you know what happens because of the nature of the mind. As soon as you don't want to go to sleep, you go to sleep. So that was what was happening with me. Using a bit of positive mind there it was very easy it is very easy to actually get rid of the problem, and actually learn how to sleep well.
Many of you maybe have busy lives. You can't afford to waste time by worrying about sleeping or not sleeping. If you are a busy person, you are very fortunate, because you have to learn how to train your mind, you've got no choice, otherwise you go crazy. So learn how to put everything into sleeping at night. Now is the time to sleep, hundred percent commitment to that and nothing else, no work, no more worries about the past, everything into what you are doing. and if you can do this, you can sleep well. When you sleep well, you find that you have more energy and more ease of mind throughout the next day. Usually people who are tired or sick are the people who get cranky. And you all know what cranky people do. They create so much pain and difficulty in this world. I think if only Mr Bush learned how to sleep properly, which is twenty-four hours a day, we might have a better … we might have a better world. Because when people don't sleep well or when they are sick, when they are aching, when they are in pain, they always get very very grumpy, and if you're really in pain sometimes you get angry and even violent, a lot of times because people don't have the ease in their body. I've learned that one's mood changes completely when the body is really relaxed. Sometimes after a deep meditation it's impossible to make you angry no matter happens. Sometimes you're just so happy, so feeling so good after deep meditation that even if, you know, somebody rear-ends your car, even if they do something really stupid, nothing can make you angry, simply because you've got so much happiness, so much energy, so much peace inside. Understanding that, it'll be great if your husband or if your wife, if your kid or something is really grumpy, send them to learn some meditation, send them to sort of relax and calm down, and then they'll be a much nicer person to live with. But I'm not talking about your partner, I'm talking about you. Are you a nice person to live with? Is it that your husband sent you here tonight…or your wife? Or your family sent you all the way from Singapore to Perth to get rid of you for a few days.
Obviously that sometimes that we create so much pain and difficulty for other people, simply because we are tired, so tired, I don't mean physically, I mean mentally, you've just had enough. You know what that feels like? What happens? You can't take it any more, you kick the dog, throw the cat out, divorce your partner, sometimes people even beat their kids. The kids have done nothing, just you're tired, maybe not with sticks but with words, shouting at them, screaming at them, have you seen that happen? The poor kids, they just wonder, where is my mommy's love gone? Why is my daddy shouting at me so cruelly? It's a terrible thing to see, and where does it come from? The parents are just so tired, they can't take any more, they've got no resilience, they've got nothing left. So it's important to develop this energy into the moment, to actually to put energy into what you are doing without complaining and then you will have that power in the mind to create peace and happiness and energy inside, and if it's not for your sake, it's for other people's sake. Other people have to live, have to put up with you.
