duty to make them happy to let you go? This would mainly be a personal relative since

one can more easily tell an outsider to go away. How does one apply loving kindness to

solve this, how to find enough loving kindness to do it? So somebody else think you owe them

a duty to make them happy? I don't know where that really comes from, sometimes kids think

their parents have a duty to make them happy and look after them...up to a certain time,

but remember I compare human beings to birds. We're supposed to be a high level of being.

When it comes to raising children, you cannot beat the birds because the birds will look

after their kids, they'll sit on the eggs first of all. And if ever you've got a sore

bottom sitting meditation, think of those poor birds. [laughs] Hour after hour after

hour after hour, and as soon as those chicks are hatched, they feed and feed and feed them

all day and they always want more food. It's not like your kids, sometimes they sleep,

sometimes they've had enough. But birds have got their beak open always asking for more.

and then the birds teach their young how to fly. When I did 6 months solitary retreat,

I used to watch a pair of eagles who were nesting and you saw them take their kid, their

baby after their first flight, which is really, really cute to watch that. When you're on

retreat for 6 months you can actually watch nature, become so sensitive and see a pair

of eagles raise their young. And after that, once a bird can fly, what do mum and dad do?

They're off! They kick the bird out the nest. The son and daughter, they just go. You're

out of here, mate. Now wouldn't that be wonderful if parents could do that. Cos all you owe

them is just bringing them up, looking after them, caring for them but the point is, I like

to impress upon parents, they're not _your_ kids. These are beings who come into your

life, where they come from you don't know and what previous birth or previous realm

and now they're here in your life and you look after them, care for them, and you really

sacrifice a lot, you get a lot of fun out of that. You always know they are not yours.

Later on they will go into their own careers, their own life, go and get married, live in

another country, means bye bye children, that's as it should be. So your job is never to

think they are your children, that's a problem. They are just children, you look after them for

a while and then you let them go. So you don't owe them, past giving them an education, and

getting them started. And please don't leave your inheritance to your kids [laughs] because

it is such a stupid thing to do because the kids get very lazy. Maybe give them a little

bit of a start but don't give them too much. You give them too much, then they will never

appreciate anything and they usually waste it. So just give them enough to get them going

and then, okay off you go. And if it's like your partner in life, remember what I always

said, I mentioned this earlier, when I do any marriage ceremony, I always look at one

person, then the other person, then to say in a marriage, in a relationship, you should

never think of yourself, nor should you think of the partner, it's all about us. So if it's a

case that you think of yourself and the partner as being different, of course there is duties

of owing - I helped you, now you have to help me back. When it's us, your duty is to the

partnership, not to one person. It's to us, not me, not him, not her. That makes it a

lot different. But if you owe them a duty to make them happy, to let you go, then after

a while that, you cannot own anybody, you can't own your children, you can't own your

parents, you have to let them go sooner or later. As I've often that's the greatest act

of love is to let somebody go. Remember we had a wonderful time together, now is the

time you go to Singapore, I go somewhere else, you spend 9 days together, bye, bye [laughs]

and that's as it should be, we let each other go. We have not have no more duties than that.

When we know what our duties are in life, one of the duties is to let go of things.

And you don't owe anything. For example, that sometimes people are very grateful for the

teachings and example which I have done and given you and sometimes people say, I owe

you Ajahn Brahm. I always remember Ajahn Chah teaching me, cos he helped me so much and

I asked him how can I ever repay your debt, the debt I have to you? He said, you can never

repay the debt which you owe me except by helping others. So you don't pay it back,

you pay it on. If I have helped you, the only way to pay off what you owe me is to give

all these teachings and kindness to somebody else. That's why teaching you and teaching

people in Malaysia and Australia and all over the world is the way I'm paying off my debt

to Ajahn Chah. He helped me, so I help you, now you're in debt to me. [laughs] Now you

got to go and help somebody else and then you've paid off your debt to your teacher.

That's how owing and letting go happens. It's quite beautiful. See what else we got here.

Question: Sorry to ask you to repeat, please elaborate the donkey and the 2 jokes relating to listless.

Thank you very much. There's only one durian. Sometimes people are so greedy [laughter]

they want two, an extra one. So the old story, donkey, durian stick on the donkey's back,

string on the end of a stick, durian on the end of the string. So when the donkey goes

after the durian, the durian is always in front of the donkey's mouth and can never

catch it. That's why we're always running somewhere, that's what listlessness is

we're always running somewhere, always going somewhere, always doing something and

we think by going here, going there, we're going to catch something. Get the durian,

get satisfaction, happiness or whatever else you're after in life. And you find that the

whole meaning of your life is always running after something and you can never catch it.

You get close many times. But it's always in front of you, it's within reach but when

you go towards it, it disappears. Remember when you were children and you saw a rainbow

and you could see where the rainbow was striking the ground, maybe in some field or garden

somewhere. You went over to the end of the rainbow and as soon as you approach where

the rainbow met the ground, the rainbow moved away from you. You can never catch the foot

of the rainbow. In Western culture they always said there's a pot of gold at the end of the

rainbow. But of course, you can never catch it, when you go towards it, it moves away

from you. That's like so many things in life, that's a durian in front of the donkey. But

you find a way of catching of that durian, you just stop, you let go. Now I've told many

people in their interviews, don't try to let go. You let go of trying. It's not a funny,

it's not a smart aleck statement, it's actually very deep. Don't try to let go, let go of

trying which means you stop and then the durian comes towards you. So that's how you stop

listlessness. Cos listlessness, restlessness is always wanting something and thinking that

moving, scratching will get rid of the itch, but it never does. So after a while, you

just stop and then everything which all that movement promised you, comes to you, rather

than you chasing it. I used to tell the monks one of my stories that when I was a young

monk in Thailand, it was very tough, not only with food but you hardly ever see any tea

or coffee or anything like that, except when you were dyeing your robes. Cos to make dye

you had to work maybe 24, 36 hours so it was acceptable. If you were dyeing a robe you

can have some tea and coffee in the dyeing shed, as much as you like because you got

to keep up all night. And one day some of my friends, they were in the dyeing shed,

dyeing their robes all night and I happened to wake up a little bit early. The bell went

at 3 o'clock in the morning and I was up about 2.45 and I thought if I go to the dyeing shed,

I'm sure my friends will give me a cup of tea or coffee. I'm up early enough, there'll

be some there, and it will help with my morning meditation. I'll have good meditation

that morning. And I thought, no, that's just following your craving, that's not the sort

of thing a monk, good monk should do. And before I knew it, I was off walking towards

the dyeing shed [laughter], I just couldn't resist. And when I got to... actually half

way towards the dyeing shed, I heard the 3 o'clock bell ring and that's important to

notice. When I got to the shed a couple of minutes later, it was cleaned up, they'd finished.

They'd finished early, so no monks were there, no tea, no coffee but it was all still warm.

I thought never mind, so I went into the hall and did my meditation which was quite sleepy.

And after meditation was finished those monks they came up to me and said, "Ajahn Brahm

where were you at 3am?" I said, "I was out walking along that path." "Oh, we came the

other path to bring you a cup of tea." [laughter] They were so kind and I was kind to them.

They made a cup of tea for me, they were going to give it to me as I woke up in the early

morning. If I had only resisted my craving and defilement [laughter], the tea would have

come to me. And that's happened to me so often in life. When I've gone chasing things, I

never get it. When I just sat here, it comes to me. It's weird but it's so true. So that's

the story, the donkey and the carrot and very much on life. You sit down and things happen,

you chase them and you just make more misery for yourself.

Question: Anyway [cough]. Dear... ah, is the vegetarian thing.

Doesn't Buddhism teach us not to kill living creatures? How do Buddhists

defend non-vegetarianism? I was on the retreat in June and when you said, ah, okay, so long

as you don't personally do the killing. Isn't that like saying it's ok to murder someone so long

as you don't do it personally but hire a hitman? [laughs] Continuing to eat meat supports the meat industry

where people kill animals for food and indulge in inhumane practices for profit. Isn't that

actually what the Buddha said, you can't order something to be killed. Now if someone offers

you without you asking for it, then, that is acceptable, according to Buddhism. And

I've already mentioned that first couple of years in Thailand as a young monk, the food

was disgusting but one day this Thai woman who'd married an American man, came to visit

our monastery, and it turned out this American man had a turkey farm. And it was about 3

or 4 days before Christmas and he said to us, he said, oh, you don't eat very much,

you're all really thin here and it's Christmas soon, I'm going to give you a turkey for Christmas.

He says, I'm going to choose a nice fat one and give it to you. [laughs] And we had to

say no cos it was killed especially for the monks, we can't accept it. And you know that

really hurt [laughter] but would have hurt the turkey more, so fair enough. But if it's

not designed to be killed for you, then, the Buddha said, yes you can eat it because sometimes

the monks don't have that luxury to choose their food. And anyway, as I mentioned to

people, it's a bit cheeky answer but I like being a bit cheeky sometimes. Have you not

heard the saying, you are what you eat? You've heard that before? So a cow eats grass, so

a a cow is just grass that's all. So eating a cow is just vegetarian. [laughter] haha

Question: I was told that the more we meditate, spirits who needed merits may come to request

so we give them some merits. How to pass some merits to them when they are already dead?

Exactly, they won't come to you. For those of you who get scared of these things, one

of the key stories, this is just an example of many. There was a Thai lady who came, she

married a Westerner and came to live in Perth many years ago. And she got divorced from

her husband but she had 3 or 4 really good kids and when she got established, she had

a mother, her father'd already died. And so she got a visa for her mother to come to Australia

to live so that this Thai girl could look after her mother. So the mother came to stay

in Perth, she couldn't speak any English but I could speak Thai, so we could talk to each

other. But one day she got every sick, she's already quite old, so the daughter put her

in hospital and then she came and told me the strange story. She did not know whether her

mother was going to survive this illness or not. So she went to one of these spirit doctors,

these mediums. It didn't cost that much, only A$20. There's quite a famous medium in Perth

and the medium said, give me the name of the hospital, the ward and the room and then I

could just leave my body, go into astral body and then I can check on your mum to see whether

this is going to be the last illness or whether she would survive. So, good deal. She gave

the A$20 to this medium and the medium went into a trance. She went unconscious and about

5, 10 minutes later, she came out of trance and the first thing she did was give the A$20

note back to the Thai girl. And the Thai girl said, "What 're you doing?" He said, "Look,

I found the hospital, I found the ward and I found the room in which your mother was

but I couldn't get inside." This is how the medium described it. There's a force field

around your mother. A really incredible force field, I'd never seen that before, I couldn't

get in. That's why I'm giving the A$20 back. I'm sorry, I just can't get in there. Who

is your mum?" And she said she's a Buddhist nun keeping 8 precepts for the last 20 years.

And when the daughter said that, she was like a meichee keeping 8 precepts for such a long time,

the medium took the A$20 back. You should have told me to begin with, you 've been wasting

my time. [laughter] People like me cannot get close to people like that. Now that's

one example of many. Spirits or anybody who leaves their body like that, yes they do come

across a person who's keeping good virtue or meditating, how they see you is this big