乐观对待

來吧！我是為了超越者

2025-06-08T21:58:00.000-07:00

这篇经文可见“佛系”不是佛教的根本态度。

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　　有一次，世尊與大比丘僧團一起在憍薩羅進行遊行。旅途中行走的世尊在某處看見大沙羅樹林。看見後，離開道路，去那個沙羅樹林。抵達後，進入那個沙羅樹林，在某處顯露微笑。

　　那時，尊者阿難想這個：「什麼因、什麼緣，世尊有微笑的顯露呢？諸如來不無原因地顯露微笑。」那時，尊者阿難對世尊說這個：「大德！什麼因、什麼緣，世尊有微笑的顯露呢？諸如來不無原因地顯露微笑。」

　　「阿難！從前，這個地方是繁榮的，同時也富裕的，以及人多的、人雜亂的城市，阿難！又，迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者近依這個城市住。阿難！迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者有名叫額偉細的優婆塞，是在諸戒上不完全行為者，阿難！約五百位被額偉細優婆塞坦白、勸導的優婆塞是在諸戒上不完全行為者。阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞想這個：『我是這五百位優婆塞的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，我是在諸戒上不完全行為者，而這五百位優婆塞是在諸戒上不完全行為者，像這樣，這是相同的，沒有任何超越的，來吧！我是為了超越者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞去見那五百位優婆塞，抵達後，對那五百位優婆塞說這個：『尊者們！從今天起，請你們憶持我是在諸戒上完全行為者。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞想這個：『聖額偉細是我們的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，聖額偉細確實將成為在諸戒上完全行為者，那麼，更何況是我們。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞去見額偉細優婆塞，抵達後，對額偉細優婆塞說這個：『從今天起，請聖額偉細憶持這五百位優婆塞也是在諸戒上完全行為者。』阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞想這個：『我是這五百位優婆塞的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，我是在諸戒上完全行為者，這五百位優婆塞也是在諸戒上完全行為者，像這樣，這是相同的，沒有任何超越的，來吧！我是為了超越者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞去見那五百位優婆塞，抵達後，對那五百位優婆塞說這個：『尊者們！從今天起，請你們憶持我是梵行者、行遠離者、從婬欲俗法(村落法)戒絕者。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞想這個：『聖額偉細是我們的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，聖額偉細確實將成為梵行者、行遠離者、從婬欲俗法戒絕者，那麼，更何況是我們。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞去見額偉細優婆塞，抵達後，對額偉細優婆塞說這個：『從今天起，請聖額偉細憶持這五百位優婆塞也是梵行者、行遠離者、戒絕婬欲俗法者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞想這個：『我是這五百位優婆塞的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，我是在諸戒上完全行為者，這五百位優婆塞也是在諸戒上完全行為者；我是梵行者、行遠離者、戒絕婬欲俗法者，這五百位優婆塞也是梵行者、行遠離者、戒絕婬欲俗法者，像這樣，這是相同的，沒有任何超越的，來吧！我是為了超越者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞去見那五百位優婆塞，抵達後，對那五百位優婆塞說這個：『尊者們！從今天起，請你們憶持我是停止夜食的、戒絕非時食的一日一食者。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞想這個：『聖額偉細是我們的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，聖額偉細確實將成為停止夜食的、戒絕非時食的一日一食者，那麼，更何況是我們。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞去見額偉細優婆塞，抵達後，對額偉細優婆塞說這個：『從今天起，請聖額偉細憶持這五百位優婆塞是停止夜食的、戒絕非時食的一日一食者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞想這個：『我是這五百位優婆塞的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，我是在諸戒上完全行為者，這五百位優婆塞也是在諸戒上完全行為者；我是梵行者、行遠離者、戒絕婬欲俗法者，這五百位優婆塞也是梵行者、行遠離者、戒絕婬欲俗法者；我是停止夜食的、戒絕非時食的一日一食者，這五百位優婆塞也是停止夜食的、戒絕非時食的一日一食者，像這樣，這是相同的，沒有任何超越的，來吧！我是為了超越者。』

　　阿難！那時，額偉細優婆塞去見迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者，抵達後，對迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者說這個：『大德！願我得到在世尊的面前出家，願我得到具足戒。』阿難！額偉細優婆塞得到在迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者的面前出家，得到具足戒。還有，已受具足戒不久，住於單獨的、隱離的、不放逸的、熱心的、自我努力的額偉細比丘不久就以證智自作證後，在當生中進入後住於凡善男子們為了利益正確地從在家出家成為無家者的那個無上梵行結尾，他證知：『出生已盡，梵行已完成，應該被作的已作，不再有此處[輪迴]的狀態。』然後額偉細比丘成為眾阿羅漢之一。

　　阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞想這個：『聖額偉細是我們的多助益者、先導者、勸導者，聖額偉細確實剃除髮鬚、裹上袈裟衣後，將從在家出家成為無家者，那麼，更何況是我們。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞去見迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者，抵達後，對迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者說這個：『大德！願我們得到在世尊的面前出家，願我們得到具足戒。』阿難！那時，那五百位優婆塞得到在迦葉世尊、阿羅漢、遍正覺者面前出家，得到具足戒。阿難！那時，額偉細比丘想這個：『我是這無上解脫樂的隨欲得到者、不困難得到者、無困難得到者，啊！這五百位比丘確實也會是這無上解脫樂的隨欲得到者、不困難得到者、無困難得到者。』阿難！那時，當那五百位比丘住於隱退的、不放逸的、熱心的、自我努力的時，就不久，以證智自作證後，在當生中進入後住於凡善男子們為了利益正確地從在家出家成為無家者的那個無上梵行結尾，他們證知：『出生已盡，梵行已完成，應該被作的已作，不再有此處[輪迴]的狀態。』

　　阿難！像這樣，額偉細為上首的那五百位比丘更高再更高、勝妙再勝妙地努力著，作證無上解脫，阿難！因此，在這裡，應該被這麼學：『更高再更高、勝妙再勝妙地努力著，我們將作證無上解脫。』阿難！應該被你們這麼學。」

　　優婆塞品第三，其攝頌：

　　「膽怯、自信者、地獄，怨恨、旃陀羅為第五則，

　　　喜、買賣、國王，在家人連同額偉細。」

什么是佛系？

“佛系”是一个源自中国网络文化的流行词，最早出现在2014年左右，后来通过社交媒体和网络平台广泛传播。它的含义和起源可以概括如下： --- 1. 基本含义 “佛系”形容一种顺其自然、不争不抢、随遇而安的生活态度，强调对事物保持淡然、平和甚至略带消极的心态。这种态度类似于佛教中“无欲无求”的哲学，但更多是一种调侃或自嘲，并非严格的宗教概念。 - 典型表现： - “佛系工作”：完成任务即可，不追求升职加薪。 - “佛系恋爱”：不主动、不拒绝，顺其自然。 - “佛系购物”：不比较价格，买到什么是什么。 --- 2. 词源与传播 - 起源： 2014年，日本杂志《non-no》介绍了一种“佛系男子”（仏男子）的概念，指不热衷恋爱、专注于自身兴趣的男性。这一概念传入中国后，被本土化并扩展为“佛系”文化。 - 爆红： 2017年，中国社交媒体（如微博、微信）出现《第一批90后已经出家了》等文章，用“佛系”调侃年轻人面对压力时的低欲望状态，引发广泛共鸣。 --- 3. 文化背景 - 社会压力：反映了当代年轻人（尤其是90后、00后）在高房价、职场竞争等压力下，选择用“躺平”或淡然态度应对现实困境。 - 网络解构：通过戏仿佛教术语（如“随缘”“放下”），将消极情绪转化为幽默表达，形成集体自嘲。 --- 4. 与佛教的区别虽然借用佛教词汇，但“佛系”是世俗化的网络用语，与真正的佛教修行无关。佛教强调精进与觉悟，而“佛系”更多是戏谑化的被动态度。 --- 5. 类似概念 - 日本：“低欲望社会”“草食系”。 - 欧美：“Slacker culture”（懒散文化）、“Meh”（表示冷淡）。总之，“佛系”是当代青年亚文化的一种符号，既是对压力的逃避，也是对传统竞争价值观的反思。

人生最高尚的目标是发财吗？

2020-10-17T21:23:00.000-07:00

在學習吸引力法則的時候，看到這樣的句子：人生最高尚的目標是發財。所以說人必須心懷發財的願景。是覺得很有道理，也很願意相信認同，但是捫心自問，我的價值觀認同這樣的觀點嗎？不認同。仔細想想，要過什麼樣的生活，有什麼內容，都好像不是賺錢這件事。但是錢不夠用而時常感到壓力緊張卻也是一直困擾自己的事。怎樣才能夠享受賺錢喜歡賺錢呢？還是說，可能錢不是跟赚不賺為根本，而是吸引力得到的發財的情況，這個吸引金錢財物到我的生命當中是怎樣的一種心態，怎樣一種想法呢？

如果說我能夠解放錢不夠用的束縛，該是如何的美好的一件事。是的，人要是沒有錢，能夠高尚的起來嗎？問題應該是出在“不為五斗米折腰”這個理念上。因為內心認同這個理念，所以直接就反應出，沒有貧窮的對應顯現不出高尚的品格。但是事實上，貧窮是高尚不起來的。所以說問題是怎樣把“不為五斗米折腰”的理念清除乾淨。

以前學過，要改變信念，必須找出動搖這個信念的理由，最後必須讓這個信念不能夠擁有超過兩個能夠站得住腳的理由，而反對的理由卻是超過三個以上。為什麼不為五斗米折腰是高尚的呢？能夠抵禦肚子餓，就是能夠抵禦慾望。能夠抵禦慾望是高尚的，好這個是一個理由。再來。。雖然身處弱勢，卻還能夠不妥協，這是一種高尚情操的表現。好這個是第二個理由。我現在有自信能夠不求與人而自己度過難關，有自信是可靠的，這也算是第三個理由。

好讓我來破拆這三個理由。能夠抵禦肚子餓不代表能夠抵禦所有一切慾望，而肚子餓是自然現象不是慾望表現所以不代表就是能夠抵禦慾望，換個角度而言，難道堅持自己的立場不也是另一種慾望的表現嗎？也就是說，追求自我正確也是滋養自我的一種表現，太堅持自我最後難免是另一種自私的表現，自私更加是慾望的深淵。而抵禦慾望，就是抵禦自我的表現。不能夠承認自己的弱勢，含有欺騙自己進而欺騙他人的表現，一點都不高尚。不能夠接受別人的幫助反而是一種不自信的表現，因為已經把目前的難處看得很高了，所以說反而是低估了自己的能力，也就是對自己的信心不足。

易流牙血煲吃花生能加預防

2020-10-16T22:42:00.000-07:00

你是否發覺自己很容易流牙血？甚至沒頭沒腦的也出現流血滿嘴的情形呢？

遇到這情形你不必驚恐，只消喊著冰水片刻即告無事，但你必須預防日後再有這種現象。

平時你應該多吃蘋果，而且連皮咬下去留意咀嚼；最好隔三五天煲些花生吃，不一定要煲湯，炒的也可以，吃時也需細嚼花生肉，便可預防牙血無端端流出了。

金針營養價值高花莖葉可作藥用

2020-10-15T22:06:00.000-07:00

家庭作餸，尤其是做齋菜，常喜加入一些黃花（又叫金針），黃花具有獨特美味，增加餸菜的美味。

說起來，黃花的確是一種良好的作餸用的菜蔬，它不僅有豐富的營養價值，而且還有有益的藥理作用。

市售的黃花，都是乾製品，作餸前要將之水發後，才可配合其他蔬菜作餸。黃花的營養價值如何呢！據分析，每一百克乾的黃花中含有蛋白質十克，脂肪一克、糖（炭水化合物）六十二克，可發出熱量三百多卡，所含的維他命A的量比紅蘿蔔還要多二倍。

中藥用黃花的根部來治療貧血和月經稀少，老年人的頭暈，效果很好。中醫還用黃花的花、葉、莖作為藥用，用其健胃、利尿、通乳、消腫痛、安神的作用，來治療大便帶血，排尿困難或排尿稀少、水腫、便秘和產後沒有乳汁產生等等病症。由於其含有豐富的維他命A，所以多吃黃花作的餸菜，也可治療皮膚毛囊角化（皮膚出現一粒一粒隆起顆粒），增強皮膚粘膜抗病的能力，預防夜盲症，減少染患咽炎、鼻炎在尿道發炎的機會等等。

但是需要注意的是，不要吃新鮮的黃花，因其含有一種生物鹼，吃後易發生喉乾、噁心、嘔吐、腹脹、腹瀉、便血、尿血…市售的已乾裂的黃花，則可安心食用不會引起中毒。

別用開水煎藥

2020-10-14T09:31:00.001-07:00

植物性中藥的有效成分是分佈在植物的細胞之中。如用熱開水煎藥，植物細胞中的蛋白質、澱粉等便產生凝固現象，細胞不易破裂，即使破了，有效成分也會裹在凝固體內，不易釋出，藥效也不能充分發揮出來。而用冷水煎藥，植物細胞隨水溫逐漸升高，慢慢膨脹破裂、蛋白質及澱粉也逐漸分散在水中不會阻滯有效成分的浸出，所以，藥效較高。

臘水浸白米有療效

2020-10-13T21:17:00.001-07:00

美國的醫學界，最近發現，中國人之所以少心臟病，是與中國人常吃的小菜有關，許多中國小菜，其中存有大量的<黑桿菌>能使血凝塊消除。

心臟病以及血管栓塞，主要是血凝塊作祟，能夠有藥物打消這種凝塊，就可以使血液暢流，事實上，中國古代相傳下來的食物，也的確有許多具有這特殊的醫療作用。

譬如芹菜來說，中國古代，相傳地仙都食芹，是以能長壽，例如唐代被傳成仙的張果老，就是經常以芹菜為食。事實上，今日的醫學界也證明，芹汁可以降血壓有益於血壓高者。即使不能成仙，也可以保持老年的健康。

又如山居患<嬰>準人，今日知道是甲狀腺缺乏碘，為了爭取吸收碘質，甲狀腺就自動發大，古代山區的人卻以<多食羊靨>來加以補救。（見“千金方”。）原來所謂羊肉的甲狀腺所存在的部份，這是以肉食來吸收碘質。

而在“雜病治例”中，則開列“昆布海藻豬肉湯”，如所周知，昆布海藻之中，乃是蛤蜆之屬，就含有不少碘質。

中國日常食物中，被視為可以治病者，可以說是不勝枚舉，例如在“志雅堂雜抄”中，所可舉的“食物療法”，就有：“治齒痛腫法，用黑豆煮酒。”

“枸杞可益目。”

“多食黃瓜，可消暑天疿子。”

“梨子可去熱眼，熱牙疼皆可。”

甚至就是米，亦可作醫藥用，“臘月以臘水浸白米三兩宿，曬乾，碾作粥米，遇暑月泄瀉者，煮食之，良驗”。此外，如菇菌能去癰毒，木耳能去瘀，生魚能去血塊，已經是中國人所知的“良方”了。

懷念的人

2020-05-18T18:30:00.000-07:00

感覺好像心中懷念的人總是已經去世的人，為什麼對活著的人卻不會？媽媽是已經進入第五年了，還是每天的懷念感嘆，也許是每天念經回向功德都唸到媽媽的名字，還有妹妹的，連帶的也會在心中泛起幕幕的念想，只是沒有媽媽那麼深，而爸爸就模模糊糊。結論就是此人在生時跟我有多親近，我對他就有多懷念。

回想過去親人都健在的時候，念想的都是活人，心中少了哀愁，這也許就是年紀大了常會心懷感傷的原因。因為想著的人若還健在，你只想能為他做些什麼，而對於去世的人，卻無能為力，只能徒傷悲。

反省自己的這種心態，只能增加無力感，對健康無益處，對行為也沒有幫助，要快樂安詳的活著，就必須進行調整，換掉內心的銀幕吧，雖然無奈，要快樂還是悲傷的過，還得自己做選擇。

How to believe in yourself: Jim Cathcart at TEDxDelrayBeach

2014-05-04T21:35:00.000-07:00

Somewhere deep inside you know what kind of person you were gonna be, if you want to produce great acorns thinks like an oak, not like an acorn, think like the person you intend to become, like the Christian question what will Jesus do? Ask yourself how would the person I'd like to be do the thing I am about to do.

The acorn has three parts, it's got a stem, a cap, and a seed. and the stem represent it's connection to the pass, all the acorn and all the oak that ever exist in it's line before is encoded through that stem, legacy into this acorn. The cap holds on to the seed, until the seed ready to go on it's own, so the cap represent your coaches, your mentor your roll model your guides your parents your friends your teachers, and when you're ready to grow on your own, the seed of that acorn holds not only your potential but the potential of every future generations of acorns that will spring from that line.

So let me ask you a question, what kind of seed is in you? See I belief part of our responsibility in life is to find out who we are to discover ourselves, first off we need to respect our nature we need to realize we are part of a continuing chain that carry a legacy and responsibility, and if that's the case then we needs to recognize that we were not biological coincidences, I belief there is a great creator, and I belief you were intentionally created for a myriad of purposes, there are many things we can do with our lives, and I thinks it's our job to find out and to do'em as well as we possibly can. We're passing along the right imprint for the next generation, and that's just simply my life philosophy, that's the way I look at it.

So first we need to respect our nature, second, we need to know our nature, take Aristotle advice know thyself, but know things about yourself that most people don't discover, for example, know how you're smart, not just how smart you are in comparison to others, in what ways are you smart, know what you care about, what is the values that motivate your choices, know what's your personal velocity is, the intense or the drive that you naturally operate, know the back ground imprint, positive neutral and negative that you carry with you, and what effect it's had on you, know your behavioral style, how you come across to other people, know the pattern and the choices so that you continuing learn more and more about what it's like to be you so you can do a better job of it, and than we need to apply our nature, we need to nurture our nature by expressing ourselves in the world.

See, I never expected to be anything but ordinary, I was raise to be nice and ordinary, I expected I would grow up to be like dad working for the phone company, I figured I'd go to work in the phone company, maybe work in an office, I figured I'd work till sixty five and have 1.34 kids, I'd retire 65 and then I'd die at statistical average age for my gene pool, that's what I expected, until one day in 1972 on the radio in the next room to mine I heard a voice that changed everything, I was working for the little rock housing authority, Little Rock Arkansas, Little Rock urban renewal agency. I was a government clerk working 525 dollars a month I weight 200 pounds, this is 148, I smoke 2 packs of cigarettes a day, I never set a goal in my life, I didn't have a college degree and didn't have money in the bank, I was newly married with a new baby at home and I didn't expect much from life and in the next room I heard the voice of Earl Nightingale, Known at the time as the dean of personal motivation, he was on 900 radio station around the world, what he said that day will forever resonates with me. He say if you will spend one extra hour each day studying your chosen field you'll be a national expert in that field in five years or less, that hit me like a tornado, it rearrange everything in my life. I started doing the math, an hour a day, say five days a week, fifty weeks a year, that's twelve hundred and fifty hour in five year. If I spend, me just ordinary me, twelve hundred and fifty hour studying one subject...Wow! I could actually be a national expert, what I want to be an expert at? Those not urban renewal, and than it occur to me a few weeks later I want to do what that guy on the radio's doing, but I had no idea what that was, I just feel that's right to get into the field of human development, I thought will see, an hour a day, I am a government clerk I've got eight hours a day, I can do this by Thursday, and then I started thinking about what he'd said and I took him seriously, an hour a day, I focus, I thought I was behind the game so I needed two hours a day, and three and four and five... so I over compensated and I become fanatical about the field of human development, and in that five years period I went from being a government clerk with very little aspiration to being a full time speaker and trainer, in two years, that was 1972, in 1974 I started buying Earl Nightingale's training material and selling them to businesses, by 1984 his company was selling my training material world wide, they sold three and a half million dollars worth of one of my first audio, in the first two years it was out, I was blown away, his formula works, and I've seen it for hundred and even thousand of people in the many many years since that time that I've been sharing that massage. Think about that, you, Ted audience, if you were to focus half an hour a day, extra just beyond the Ted talk you always watch, ok beyond that, if you were to focus half an hour of study on one field of endeavor for five consecutive years, you not only transform you, you transform the world around you, and we collectively will transform the world as we know it today. You and I were born with a gift to make this a better place, even if we didn't improve we can make the world better right now, we can encourage people, compliment peoples, we can solve problems, we can pick up trash, we could fix things we could bring new ideas, but as you grow you become a bigger source for the rest of lives to express itself through you, you were put here for a reason, it contain in that acorn, so nurture your nature, figure out first off, I am valuable accept that, I wanna know who I am and I wanna know how I operate, and how can I understand me better, and then I wanna nuture that nature, I wanna apply myself in the world put myself to work in such way that the rest of the world says well that's cool, if he or she could do it, I could probably do it, I wonder how they did it, and then we start spreading that and the ripples go world wide, so ask yourself every day how were the person I'd like to be do the things I am about to do.. Thank you.

Overcoming hopelessness: Nick Vujicic at TEDxNoviSad

2014-05-02T22:43:00.001-07:00

危机即是转机，几年前我也用过这一句话来鼓励我的朋友，那时我在法学会推动活动，当朋友们面对困难时我以这句话鼓励他们度过难关。可是今天我感到孤单无助的时候却忘记了跟自己讲这句话，有时候我们需要别人跟我们讲这样的话，看来you tube也变成那个跟我讲这句话的人了。

今天有十亿人再捱饿，一百万人会自杀，每四秒有一个自杀。一亿两千万奴隶！我能够为我的人生难过吗？

我们生来面对困苦，可是我们要找到希望。

刚刚我太太跑来跟我说妈妈电视机声音开太大声，她静不下来，以至于听不到内心的指引。我们是在烦恼生命的不足还是看到自己所拥有的而庆幸？

when we feel that we don't have enough love we loose strength

爱源自于我们自己，只要我们能够爱别人，能够给予别人爱，我们就已经拥有爱。

看看我们的人生，我们感觉到渺小，我们感觉到无能为力，还是我们能够看到生命在鼓励我们超越自我？那一句话叫什么呢？虽然看不见但是还是相信？"Faith"

如果我们往消极的方向去行动，我们会更加加重别人的负担。生命总是有许多选择，问题是你在寻找什么呢？你必须找到，你为何生于此？你是谁？死后往哪里去？（这些也是禅师要我问的问题。）

你的人生有两天重要的日子，你出生的日子和你开悟的日子，那是你知道为什么的日子。

我们所作所为都是为了在寻找爱，可是我们屡屡犯错，因为我们找错方向，爱在心里面，往外遍寻不着。

我们是不会满足的，一直到我们知道为什么我生于此，我们才能够找到希望，我们才能够拥有爱心，才能够满足。我是完美的，我的人生有更大的使命待我去完成，我不是无缘无故的出生。当然我感觉不到奇迹，但是我还是可以成为别人的奇迹。我们有心去爱别人，我们想看到别人相亲相爱，爱惜自己，心怀远大的志向，永不轻言放弃。

我们不都是在找寻希望吗？你在寻找什么呢？一天一天慢慢来，一时找不到答案不要放弃，最后安详的心比什么都值得。

It's Never too Late to Chase your Dreams: Steve Mazan at TEDxSanJoseCA

2014-05-02T11:19:00.001-07:00

我忘记了有一天我也会死，我知道我必须想好了到底我要过怎样的时候，到底想完成什么，但是很可悲的是这个问题还没有答案。此人说，别把你的问题拖到某一天才来解决，因为日历里边没有某一天。刚刚也听到Diana David说，五岁的那个你想要做什么？我自己这几天也不断的在想，要是我有两千八百万我还会卖保险吗？答案是否定的，那么我想做什么呢？我想过怎样的生活呢？

学会做吉他的工艺？把人家砍下来要丢掉的树木做成吉他，既环保又废物利用？

写书？

经营博客？

写书法？

弹吉他？

。。。还是。。。？？？

唉！我必须找到这个答案！

向幼童学习

2013-10-04T01:54:00.003-07:00

如果问一个小孩：“小朋友，你知道一个人要怎么样才会
成功？”他一定会说：“一个人要有恒心、有毅力、有自信、不
怕失败、勇往直前才会成功。”这是连十几岁的孩子随时都可以回答的问题，但是为什么世界上成功的人，快乐的人，却是如此少呢？这使我想起一句话：“三岁小孩都知道，八十老翁做不到。”

有恒心,从一个正在学习走路的幼童身上可以看到。屡战屡败，屡败屡战。一个动作不断的重复，我们称为有恒心。为什么呢？
因为幼童有跃跃欲试的心，为什么呢？因为他享受每一个些小的进步。幼童的内心没有‘能不能’成功，对于这个‘能不能’我们大人常常解释为‘相信一定会成功’，或者‘肯定会成功’等等，但是幼童的内心会这样想吗？或许他的心只想着乐趣，尝试的乐趣，过程的刺激。

幼童不会因为跌倒过而不敢再尝试，为什么呢？因为他不记得了。所以如果我们尽量把不愉快的经验都忘的一干二净，也许我们会比较有活力。我们常常讲初心，初心就是没有失败过的心，只会想着成功的可能性。

幼童有毅力，因为他不懂那么多，所以不会去衡量许多得失的处境，反而会一心一意的专注于他所认识的那些小的事情。有时候没有那么多选择反而是成功的助缘。海伦凯勒不能够用其他的感官认识这个世界，她只有触觉，结果她的触觉感觉敏锐，她的认识更加深刻。而我们往往不舍得放弃许许多多的可能性，不肯舍弃许多能够通往成功的道路，结果我们踌躇不前，贪多嚼不烂，最后落了个一事无成。

幼童不知道他的腿不够力，肌肉还没长全，结果不知道自己不能反而是信心的温床。自然而然的不知，自然而然的自信。世上之事都是需要比对才能够显现任何意义。没有自信源自于本来的有自信，也就是说我们本来就是无所不能，不经思索就感觉到自信，这就是没有自信的根本原因。

奇迹创造者

2013-10-03T06:57:00.001-07:00

这样的老师和这样的学生是注定要相遇的。人生的奇迹往往要过后才让你看清，所发生的总有他的道理。以一般的看法，我们会觉得人们的遭遇或者应该说人的遭遇都有他事先的安排，这样就不能够不说是宿命论，也许有人会说是神的安排。但是从另一方面看，明显的生命的发展有他不可预订的层面，也就是说生命的成长和开展有他生生不息的有机的自由创作。唯一能够解释这个状况就只有吸引力法则。

海伦凯乐只靠触觉来理解生命，成就生命，我们五感健全的人还有什么借口我们不能够成就我们的梦想？

觉察

2013-06-12T03:09:00.001-07:00

我想你一定有这样的经验: 当你在恋爱时, 所看到的世界是多么美好,到处都是光明的，人生充满希望, 你看到的每个人都是如此可爱, 身边人所做的许多原来你不能接受的事情，你也都能够一笑置之。可是当你遇到挫败时, 同样的人、同样的事、同样的物却变得如此无法忍受! 其实世界可能仍是相同的，只是因为你内在感觉的不同, 因此所看到的将是不同的世界。“我是一切的根源”，你现在所有的一切都是你为自己所创造出来的, 而那一切的根源就是你自己，也就是你潜意识从小到大所有的经验。如果你愿意, 不妨让你匆忙的人生脚步停下来, 好好觉察在你生命里有哪些模式，为你创造出什么样的结果? 医为这是生命潜能开发最基本也是最重要的一种能力。没有觉察,就不会有改变,也不会有自我的成长, 更不会有潜能的开发。

生命潜能的一切研修也是根源于“觉察”。当我迷失在人生匆忙的脚步里，迷失在外面世界的潮流中，就失去了觉察的能力; 生命的脚步越匆忙，你将越没有能力去觉察。我想假如你曾经有在高速公路开车的经验, 会发现当车速越快，视野将会变得越狭窄，时速超过一百二、一百三时, 你只能看着眼前的一个定点, 完全无法看见两边的风景; 可是车速渐慢时，你会发现视野逐惭宽广; 当车子完全停下来时，眼前的一切完全浮现在视野里，你可以尽情浏览视野里所有的风景。所以参加自我成长、潜能开发课程，或者训练工作坊的人，最重要的就是给自己两三天的时间，停下来看一看在你眼前、身边的风景到底如何? 停下来看一看这些结果与你生命里的经验、与现在、与你经验中的自己到底有怎样的关系?

禅学里有个苏东坡与佛印的公案。有一天苏东坡和佛印辩论，他问佛印:“你看我像什么?” ，佛印看了看东坡，回答说:“像个佛。”，苏东坡又问佛印:“你知道在我眼中,你看起来像什么?”佛印笑着问他:“你看我像什么?”，苏东坡说:“你看起来像堆牛粪!”，佛印笑而不答。苏东坡很得意地以为他赢了，回家告诉苏小妹: “今夭我终于辩赢佛印了。”，苏东坡把事惰的经过告诉了妹妹。聪慧的苏小妹听完后对哥哥说:“你还是输了。佛印因为心中有佛, 所以他看你像个佛。”，当然下面的话她就不用再说了。

所以, 我们常常以为玻璃是透明的, 以为自己看到的是真相。事实上, 我们每一个人看到的都是自己，整个世界都是你自己创造出来的，你所处的四周都是镜子, 你那不是透明的玻璃。如果你讨厌一个人,就会看到他许多缺点, 然而那个人在一百个不同的人眼中, 他就会是一百个不同的样子。

外面的世界都只是一个外缘, 都只是一面镜子, 反射出我们内在的因————生命里的许多经验。如果我们想要成就自己的生命. 想有一个更高可能性的自己，首先要接受 ————我是一切的根源，这样的观念，停止要求外在世界来符合我们的需要, 把所有曾经浪费过的那些精力, 用回到自己身上。

停下脚步, 去觉察一下自己生命里所有的模式、潜意识和在成长过程中所学会的一些方式。那些都是幼小时候所学的，都是内心里无形的绳索，当我们重新觉察后，也可以重新再做选择，这是改变的开始，也是潜能开发的第一步，而重点就是————“我是一切的根源”。

我想当我们的内在发生改变时, 我们也将会看到不同的世界,因而我们将会用不同的方式来反应,从而创造出不同的结果,同时生命也将因此而改变。

当然， “觉察”并不是理论，它必须要下许多工夫, 去和更宽广的世界接触。

如果你想取悦每一个人，你就只有失却自己。

2011-09-03T08:39:00.001-07:00

两千五百年前，伊索曾经讲过这样的故事在一个晴朗的早晨，一座山里的小村子中，有一个老人和他的小孙子，牵了一匹骡子，要到山谷中一个较大城镇的市集去贩卖。两人把骡子刷洗的乾乾净净，打扮的漂漂亮亮，然後兴奋地顺著陡坡走下来。过了不久，他们经过站立一些闲人的路旁。
「你们看看那对傻瓜，」一个路人指著说，「放著舒适的骡背下坐，却宁愿用脚走。」
老人听了之险，觉得那人的话很有道理。於是两人就骑上骡背，继续往前走去。

    後来又遇上一群围在路旁闲聊的人。「你们看看那两个懒虫，也不怕把骡背压坏了。」
    老人听了之後，觉得那人的话很有道理。由於自己比较重，所以就叫小孙子继续坐在骡背上，自己下来走路。
    过了不久，又听到从路人那儿传来的话。「你们看看，那小孩子真不懂事，自己坐在骡背上，却叫老人走路。」
    老人觉得路人的话很有道理，就叫小孙子下来走路，换他坐上骡肯，这下子应该很妥当了吧!
    但过了不久，又听到这样的话：「你们看!那老头，只知道自己舒舒服服地坐在骡背上，而叫那小孩子两脚在後面苦苦追赶。』
    此时两人已经是满脸疑惑了。当最後听到这匹骡子会因为长途跋涉，而无人购买时，两人在路旁坐了下来，一副垂头丧气的样子。
    等骡子休息过一阵子之後，两人继续往前走，但态度和先前完全不一样。那天下午，人们看到他们两人气喘呼呼地走向市集。两人之间架了一根木条

，上面竟然绑了那只骡子。
伊索说：「你无法取悦每一个人，如果你想取悦每一个人，你就只有失却自己。」

自我设限

2011-05-31T21:37:00.000-07:00

跳蚤与爬蚤科学家做过一个有趣的实验：他们把跳蚤放在桌上，一拍桌子，跳蚤迅即跳起，跳起高度均在其身高的100倍以上，堪称世界上跳得最高的动物！然后在跳蚤头上罩一个玻璃罩，再让它跳，这一次跳蚤碰到了玻璃罩。连续多次后，跳蚤改变了起跳高度以适应环境，每次跳跃总保持在罩顶以下高度。接下来逐渐改变玻璃罩的高度，跳蚤都在碰壁后被动改变自己的高度。最后，当玻璃罩接近桌面时，跳蚤已无法再跳了。科学家于是把玻璃罩打开，再拍桌子，跳蚤仍然不会跳，变成“爬蚤”了。跳蚤变成“爬蚤”，并非它已丧失了跳跃的能力，而是由于一次次受挫学乖了，习惯了，麻木了。最可悲之处就在于，实际上的玻璃罩已经不存在时，它却连“再试一次”的勇气都没有。玻璃罩已经罩在了潜意识里，罩在了心灵上。行动的欲望和潜能被自己扼杀！科学家把这种现象叫做“自我设限”。

How To Be Positive

2011-05-25T23:00:00.001-07:00

So this is my first talk here for about three months, but of course, there's not just ah...as they used to say not all appearance get old for monks...no beard no skiddel at all. I was at a monastery down at serpentine, where we're still teaching the other monks and the novices, the anakara and also the sisters from Dhammasara. I have been travelling a little bit at the very beginning of the rain retreat to Sydney for the conference of the psychologist in the end another conference in mental health in Singapore, in the middle doing something good for Australia with a big conference with all the leaders of Australia, trying to get some good spiritual vibe to the people who run our country.

But in all of these things, that one of the reason they invite say a monk to one of these things, is actually because of the positive attitude and the vibe which a monk gives, and I was contemplating at a talk which I gave recently, that in psychology and life, we always ask to have a positive attitude towards things, to what so ever happened whether it is an economic crash, or whether it's a death or a love one, or separation of a relationship. There are all sorts of ups and down in life, we all say that have positive attitude helps enormously , of course there are plenty of evidence, just what that does to sickness, and to tragedy in life, but, I want to focus on this evening is how to be positive, cause sometime it gets really frustrating when some people tell you to be positive and you are not!(chuckle!) and it made you feel even worse when you having a hard time, they say:" come on! be positive!" and you can't even do that right.

So, this evening talks is, "How to have a positive mind", and the result of that attitude change in life, and of course, you all know whats coming, and that positive all comes from training your mind, especially in slowing down is to positive energy. To understand that, there is a classic story. Some of you may have heard it before, but I usually tell it to more gets and squeeze different understanding from the same story. One of those times of life which gave an experience which change much of the way you look at things, and that was the experience of walking up the hill to Bodhiyana Monastery in Serpentine. Many of you have been down there, hopefully some of you will come on Sunday for our katina ceremony.

Well, we got that 26 years ago, and for about 9 years, I gone up and down, we were in the road to that monastery always in a car or some sort of vehicle, there was like one of those days we had sort of couple of days ago we had warm spring morning, coming back from some sort of appointment, and feeling into so positive so energize, and having plenty of time, I told the driver, drop me off of the foot of the hill, I am gonna walk up today. Not for exercise so much its just for enjoying the morning, I have plenty of time. So I started walking from the south west highway up Kingspree drive to the gate of Bodhiyana Monastery. As I started walking, I got very surprised, actually was a shocked, as I look around me I could not recognize where I was. That hill side looked totally different to what I've remembered seeing looking through the window of a car, it was totally different, I was seeing things which I never knew was there, and what I saw had more detail, more depth of colour, it was just basically more beautiful, and of course that surprised me, and not being in a rush, not being in a hurry, I just stood still, as I stood still the whole hill side changed again, it was like evolving, now as a monk you're not in any sort of psychotropic substances you don't take alcohol, although, during our rain retreat, somebody offer the monks some chocolate cake and fortunately before we ate it, one of the monk looked at the little writing on the cover and saying it had alcohol in it, fortunately we stop in time, because sometime you not sure when you get yourself some chocolate cake,sometime they put in alcohol for the taste and they cooked it and all the alcohol goes, it doesn't matter, but we didn't know whether it was put in before or afterwards, so we decided not to take it, and gave it to one of the visitor, and he was very happy to be a Guinea pig, and when he came back next week he said that was A Lot Of Alcohol! it didn't evaporated and we did a good job, we were very careful, otherwise you may have gone to our monastery just after lunch in a rain retreat and seeing all the monks singing and dancing and goodness knows what else, which would've not done very well our reputation, so you gotta be very careful, so we don't take such things, there were sort of sober mindful, alert, so

Here I was having an experience like sometime you have in life and things become really weird and they starts changing in front of your eyes. But what it happens,what I was seeing became, it had more detail, more information, that hill side, you started to see little flowers, start to see rocks, and the shape of the rocks, and the liking on the rocks, and just look at the tree barks and whole tree barks was just amazing beautiful, and what was also strange is that the colours. the colours of everything you saw started to grow more intense more rich, more deep more beautiful, and the whole things were exquisite, and of course when a monk had experiences like that, we don't just enjoy, we still contemplate afterwards, what the hack was going on? I decided to analysed it through science and it became quite clear to me, that when you see things, sight is a chemical reaction on the back of your eyes, on your retina, and what happen was most people is so when they see something they move on to another image almost immediately, so the image on the back of your eye doesn't have time to properly form, and the colours don't come out, it just maybe 10% of what is there, and the detail is all smeared, because the image does not have time.

When I walk, I was going slower, the image on the back of my eye, the light have more time so you can see a much more full picture with more detail, and the colour were deeper because I had more time to manifest it was just a simple physiology, the sight which was occurring, and of course when I stood absolutely still only than did my eyes have all the time it needed to form a full picture, and for the colours which out there all the time, to be fully represented in the image on the back of my eye for my mind to have time to explore it fully to appreciate it and to taste it 100%, and of course I realized a very good simile of why people don't have a positive attitude in life, why they don't understand life. Because too many people live life as if they're in a fast car looking through the window, always going on to the next thing and pretty quickly too.

So what we're experiencing now doesn't have a time, we can't feel it fully, we're about to feel, we get 5% we get 10% we move out to something else sight, taste, feeling, everything, we don't have time for it to fully form. But when we do go slower, when we do move more gently through life, when we get out of the fast cars of life and just go on bicycles, oh bicycles gonna be too damn fast get off the bike and walk, not even walk but walk slowly what happens is you find that your senses at last have time, and the mind has got the opportunity to explore whatever comes into your senses, you see things more fully, you get more information more detail. And the surprising things at first for me, now I understand this is part of this experience, that what you see, what you feel what you taste, what you know, becomes more and more beautiful, ordinary grass becomes this green that is alive vibrant and rich, its an intense green, but when you're going through the window of a car is pastel, simply because you haven't given it time.

When I had experiences like that of course I realized it does basically what happen when we slow down in meditation, you go into retreat you just take time out of life, now you learn to move more slowly through your day whenever you can, and you do have many opportunities. What happens is you feel more you get more information, what you see becomes very rich, is a positive psychology, because sometime that hill side might be just ah...not enough trees, not enough grass its just ausy bush, it should be like some garden or like some Japanese garden or one English garden or whatever...no, when you really slowdown and stop, you can see the beauty there.

Now imagine you could slow down and stop and see the beauty in some other things in life which we're going too fast to truly appreciate. For example in my fortunate life as a monk, I don't just hang around with some president like in this place like Haymen island, sometime I hang out with murderers, and rappers and you go to prisons, amazing as a monk you see just such a range of human beings. Now when you go and see rappers, murderers, thieves, some people does some terrible terrible terrible crimes, its amazing what happen, because you know how to go slow, you can look at a person and just like that hill side, you see the grass become so beautiful, see the rocks you see features in there which you never notice before, you see just a bark on a tree the tessellated texture becomes exquisites. So you looked at someone who had murdered a child, and you see things there which most people will never notice, you see their exquisite beauty, that's a great test, it's easy to see the beauty of the hill side, but to see such beauty in such people are being locked up for many years in jail is more of a tuft ask. What happen when you do that? When you have such a positive attitude towards life, you can see beauty in the most unexpected places.

What happen is.....this happened many times, so often and I notice this is really useful. Than prisoner, that murderer that rappers, they feel that someone is respecting them, and that's an amazing changed for someone who's done such an act. The person comes in to where they be confine, to the place of imprisonment, and it is a mental torture, and their respected, and it’s such strange experience for them to have someone who looks at them and see something beautiful and good, that they too started to change the way they looked at themself. If I can see something in them, and they respect me for being honest and truthful, than they think that maybe that such a beauty does exist in them, and they start looking for it themselves. The murderer starts to see an other part of their being, the beautiful part. When that starts to grow and prosper you find that when they do get release they are healed. The reason, the sickness, so the cruelty whatever it was that pain which allow them to do such a thing is now gone, and in this life and in their future life, they will never ever do such a thing again. Is amazing what happens. Like it was the whole attitude was reinforced.

When last weekend I was teaching at a conference of the institute for mental health in Singapore, where in Singapore when you hear the old Woodbridge Hospital which now they’ve move and renamed, because maybe had a bad association with mental sickness. And I was so please after I gave a presentation so well received that one of the fellow there, he was quite a staunch Christian, he ask me, “can you come and give a bless at my ward, give a Buddhist blessing please, which was well you know in Singapore is quite something. But when I was talking to him and to many other staff there, the head of department told me of the philosophy in that hospital was to focus on that part of their patient which was saying sociable which was kind, which was intelligent, they weren’t focusing on the psychosis, they weren’t ignoring the skids of frantic fantasy, they were focusing on something else, I thought wow! You guys have understood, because if you focus on somebody’s fault, that the old two bad bricks, the facts that sometime they act in dysfunctional ways, they speaks in hallucinatory ways, well they behave in sort of avoidance to themselves or to otherwise, focus on that, than you make this person into someone….or make this dysfunction the whole of them rather just a part of them, and the positive psychology say yeah that is that just put it aside, lets focus on the other half of them. Too often we focus on the dysfunction how about focusing on when the rest of the time when a perfectly…I won’t say normal, because being normal is hypnotising so call abnormal, and they are kind sociable, and able to sort of flow in society without any problems or reactions from other people.

When you focus on the other side, the healing happens, and this is such an important psychology to see and so so please at last some body is getting the massage. When you have a sickness, I don’t know how many people when they have say a cancer, say a breast cancer forget the most of the body hasn’t got cancer, than there is still other parts of them, focusing on the other parts of them, this incredible beauty, incredible strength, incredible fitness and power, which means that you can harness that power, the power of the positive side of a sickness, the power of positive side of someone behaviour, and I know and I think many other people can understand it intuitively, how that is therapeutic, how that grows, but mention before just try and have simple ways of talking about this so people can remember, talking that if you have a garden and if you water the wheat, is the wheat that grows and take cover your garden, if you water the flowers, the flowers grows and they take over. it’s what you water, what you focus on is what grows in life.

And this is one of the great ways out of illness, out of tragedy, out of dysfunction, out of psychology problems in life, just out of sorrow and grief. If you focus on the grief the cause of the grief, the problems, of course it will get worse, and worse and worse. I’ve notice this as I was talking to someone recently that…just this afternoon I remembered it cause I was coming to town today we went pass observation city in scarbour and it was there I gave another lecture of grieve and lost conference. And many of you notice the positive attitude of a Buddhism and how we learn to let go and how we move through the pain of loosing a love one, how we let them go and how we let the pain go and how we move forward and how we change our perception, you know the old story of the concert and looking at life as a concert and I was enjoyed concert so much so that I never cried when a concert was finished, you know that story. But one of the woman after hearing my talk came up to complain bitterly, her complain was, are you say I shouldn’t grieve? Are you saying is wrong to grieve? You’re taking away my grieve. She complained. For her she associated with grieve, that she became Misses grieve, whatever her name was, but that’s her persona, that who she was. And she will go to many of those conferences, and she get a lot of support from her friends, that whose she was, and she was not willing to give it up. The person who live too long in negativity become so associate to it, one the Buddhist call attached to it, they become it they are it, I am the victim. I am the abused, I am the person who suffer such tragedy. And because they get so attached to it even though it painful they will not want to leave. Those of you who don’t appreciate that.

there’s a great story which is one of the last story, I think is the last story in that book “I open the door of your heart.” I actually haven told it in public for a long time now, about the worm in the pile of dung. Once upon a time, actually even got further than that. Once there were two monks, two Buddhist monks, and I say this cause I’m a monk myself, not all monks behave well, there are many scallywags monks, unfortunately those are the one that people like to read about in a news papers, the good monks very rarely get in the news papers. Its not news worthy to say Ajahn Brahm meditated for the last three months, but if Ajahn Brahm did something stupid like went to the casino or whatever, than of course, all got drunk because somebody gave us cakes seek in alcohol, than you might put in the news papers, but one of the monks of these two monks, miss behave, the other one was a good monk. So when they died, one of the monk got reborn in beautiful heaven realm, well the other naughty monk got reborn as a worm in a pile of shit, and like this monk we had a lot of friendship, community and fellowship like even here we trying to look after each other, and so after a few, who knows days up in heaven, this ex monk who was born as a heavenly being started to think where is my friend, my old mate I haven’t seen him for a couple of days, so when you get reborn in a heaven realm according to Buddhism, you had all these powers, and so he used some of his power to search this heavenly realm for his friend, he couldn’t find in anywhere there. so he went up a couple of level of heaven trying to find him there, he wasn’t there either, lower heavenly realm couldn’t find him there, he said, ah~ according to Buddhism the rebirth as a human being is one of the best rebirth because it’s not too much happiness it’s not too much suffering, a great place to become enlighten he said ah~ my friend he’s being reborn as a human being again, I bet that’s what happen why I can’t find him in heaven, so he search around the human realm, no trace there either, my goodness he thought he didn’t do something really bad karma got reborn as a dog or a cat, he looks in the realm of the dog and the cat, I know some people here things being reborn as a dog, is a wonderful rebirth, you don’t have to go to work on a Monday morning, but that’s not the case, if you thing being reborn as a dog is a good idea, please remember what they do to the dog after one or two weeks when its born, they take it to the vet’ you know what they do to it there? So if you want that…heh(chuckle), but anyway, he couldn’t find his friend as a dog or a cat, he look all the other animal, still couldn’t find his friend, he wouldn’t give up, he started looking in the lower realm of the creepy crawly, and there to his shock and surprise he saw his best friend was born as a worm in a pile of shit, now what would you do if that’s your friend? You go and help them out. So he went up to that pile of stinky poo, and actually call out he said, worm! worm! do you remembered me? we were monks in the past life, we were the best of friends, now you’ve made some bad karma, but don’t worry I can get you out of this, come with me up to heaven, and the worm in the pile of dung said, first of all I’d like to ask some questions, number one is there any shit up in heaven? of course there is no shit in the heaven, it’s pure and fragrance and lovely stuff there,he said, there’s no shit I am not going. Why not he said, well look it’s fragrant, it’s smell so beautiful, it’s so warm and cosy inside. Those are my food, imagine, there’s lots of sort of Asian in here, imagine got reborn sort of in a big pile of noodles, (chuckle…) well if there’s any westerner here, it’s like reborn in a big hamburger so you can eat it all your day, haha I don’t know what else you like. But! He said no I am not gonna go. cause this was his home, this was his food, this is where he belong, he liked it , and so the heavenly being try to pull the worm out. Now remember worm which live in pile of dung is smeared with slimy shit and so it’s very hard to take them out, especially when they don’t want to go. So the worm which wiggle and run, and every time this heavenly being took it out a little bit it will escape and go right into the middle of the dung again, now this heavenly being, imagine you’re sort of high being had to put your hand in this most stinking smelliest stuff, his friendship was so strong he would not give up. Cause he think if I could just take my friend the worm up to heaven so he can just see for himself, of course he would give up his shit and come up to heaven so much nicer. but of course because the worm never wanted to go it wiggle and rive escape every time and eventually the heavenly being had to give up, and leave the worm to his pile of shit.

Now I often tell that story because, I don’t know how many years I been teaching here, trying to pull you (chuckle) but you want to go? some time I pull out a little bit on a Friday night, by the time you go home you’re back in it again. haha (audience laugh,) that’s what happen with this lady, who was into grieve, she would not get pull out of the shit, she was attached to it, it was so sad to see that, but how can we get out of this? it;s whole bit about the positive psychology, is that you can’t just think it, you can’t explain it, you can’t just have a lecture, and sort of get people out, they got to feel it. They got to know it’s shit. The other way to do that is actually to get more information by going slower, because the slower we go the deeper we see, and as the deeper we see we also see this incredible positive side of life.

I know that people, in Singapore. This psychologist service in Sydney, they say that one of the bigger epidemic there’s not AIDS or cancer, but depression. I’m sure there is many people here have come because of depression before or going through it now or maybe some time later in your life being depress, now look at me having to come here to work again after three months of bliss in my monastery, you think I should get depress? (chuckle) Do I look depress? It’s incredible as a monk, you got this attitude no matter what you have to do, you just enjoy everything. Some of the stuff I have to do is crazy. Again just being at Singapore last Monday, there’s couple of people here from Singapore, you know this is true. Started off my Sunday morning at 6:15, in Canonfork park, teaching meditation, started with a short meditation, you know what it’s like afterwards people start asking you questions, taking photograph, had to rush for the morning so call break first, there were not a break first it was a morning banquet, , people saying please eat this please eat that, I made this specially for you Ajahn Brahm, now you may always see I am a fat monk, it is not my fault, I get pressured force cajole, if you don’t believe me you just come and follow me for one day, see what happens, so I had to eat this big break first and than talk to people and than talk, soon as that was finished I had to go off to this morning service at the Buddhist fellowship, well it really suppose to be a talk for an hour but it went on and on and on questions and stuff and than, I suppose to have some lunch, but on the lunch people come up and ask you to sign a book and ask some questions could have some really big problems in life so you give them, so you give them free counselling, you’re trying to put a spoon of food in one mouth and counsel them about their problems the other, after that was finish, than you have to sort of rush off to a seminar they organise for four hours of giving talks and asking questions and of course, it wasn’t for four hours, it lasted for five and six until about 8 o’clock, and after that you had to go to this golf club where they were having a sort of launch of an education programme, had to give another talk than have to go back to bed to about quarter to midnight, and if anyone look at that schedule, you’ll call that torture, MST fellowship would probably take Singapore Buddhist Fellowship to court for that, human right abuse, war crimes, but of course I enjoy every minute of it. As again you do that and look at that and say, well you can look at it in sort of negative side of it, why me? why do I have to do all these, or you can look to see the positive side of it, and the reason why I can look for the positive side of it and see the beauty in anything, see the beauty in prisoner to see the beauty in the cancer ward is to able to go so slow that beauty just stands out at you, it just so easy to see it, it just right there in front of you.

I realise that in life not what out there is the problem it’s what inside you the problem, and so is this what we see, what between us and whatever we had to experience in life. By going slow, not rushing too fast, life becomes so beautiful and meaningful. Not only that, you don’t only see just the beauty in any type of food or the beauty in any type of experience, no matter what you have to do in life, even though beauty in waiting at air port for aircraft, sitting in planes, the beauty in just going through customs waiting in line for the same sort of questions, did you pack your bags yourself Sir? You said, look at them, there is only one of them, what do you mean bags? I travel light, but you enjoy every moment of it, you had this positive attitude, and life becomes incredibly beautiful and nice no matter what you have to do. That positive attitude just comes from just moving a little bit more slowly in life, so you can see it was there all the time, we go so fasts doing so much do we see none of it at all, see just a fraction of the beauty

I don’t know when I was young, we used to go to school develop our own photographs, if any of you had that experience of this photograph, not digital today, miss so much with modern technology, high tech and high stupidity, that what I call it. You have this photograph in film, put it in sort of a tray, put all these chemical in it and the image would just appear slowly and if you took it out too soon than so the image wouldn’t fully form, it just immerge slowly, first of all you can just see the silhouette and then more detail, the colour became richer as the chemical reaction progress, that’s what happen in your eyes that what your senses are. When we go too fast we miss so much, just when you were eating, if you can have that one of you are eating that curry puff, why is it when people come here to actually eat the food if not the curry puff, people just sell here just to raise funds or something or rather, why do people like eating them why are they delicious? a lot of time is because when you come here you deliberately slow down, when you slowing down you can actually get more taste out of the food. When you slow down and get more taste out of the food, you digest it much better, this is my trick, anyone who have digestive problems sloe down, especially just before and during your food so you can get more taste, because when you get more taste all this juices get secreted in your body, actually the chemical are out to digest there, when you taste more. To prove that just seek of your favourite food, right now, think of it, close your eyes and imagine it hot and steaming right in front of you, sliver comes out, not only that, stuff in your tommy comes up.

I remember learning this when one of my fellow monk a long time ago, he has some digestive problems and so he went to the local doctor, this was in Thailand, and they decide to give him a burial meal, well they still do that, they probably do a ultra sound or mri these days, but I’m not quite sure, but what a burial meal was, he had to drink this radio active guck and it lay in his stomach, and they had a sort of exray machine they can actually seen how this burial meal went to his system, in that way they could actually tested is there any blockages or anywhere difficulties in his digestive track. But the stupid doctors schedule his appointment about 2 or 3 in the afternoon, you know monk we only eat in the morning time, in the afternoon we don’t eat and he being a monk for about 4,5 years. so when he was laying down there that burial meal just sitting there, wasn’t going any where, because the stomach wasn’t used to doing anything in the afternoon, it was half asleep, it was resting that’s what happen in monks. All the doctors and nurses were around him and they couldn’t proceed because the burial meal was just sitting there, until one of the nurses one of a smart girl said monk think of your favourite food, and he’s laying on his back than the burial meal started to moving here all over the place, just a thought was enough to actually to get the whole system going, if you’re not thinking about your food, if you thinking about the tv show or thinking about what’s on the screen or you too busy talking to the person next to you, how on earth you think that your stomach will work and your digestive juices will work? one of the reason we as monk always in silent, be mindful of our food, that’s why we have much better digestion. Simply because we slow down enjoy make peace with things, and allow the whole body to do its job without us interfering. Simple things like that work. Not only that but you can enjoy your food more, it’s strange to think that a monk is telling you to enjoy your food more, a monk is telling you how to enjoy seeing more, some people will think oh monk you should tell people not to get so attached to things, no it doesn’t work that way, the path of Buddhism is the path of ever increasing happiness,coming from stillness coming from natural happiness not a force happiness, that’s why I love being a monk, you’re a happy monk, you enjoying it, monks in our monastery are happy, there are more coming every year, but how that positive attitude, how that happiness come? Comes from stillness, you see such a beauty in things.

But more important from this positive psychology and how it generated from stillness, you just start to see the positive side of yourself. You start to look at yourself and see you’re incredibly beautiful person. People can say that, they said I am a beautiful person I’m a beautiful person…oh…shit I’m not. That’s what most people really think. As a monk you get all these people to come and talk to you, and giving their problems, very rare for persons to come up here and be at peace of themselves, always think there’s something wrong with themselves, usually something big….wrong with themselves, and it takes ages, years and years, and years of talking to people to try and convince them, number one, there’re all right, but I’m gonna go much further than that, they’re beautiful, there’s something inside of you which is incredibly nice, and I told this before, but just…

A couple of weeks before…every year, it was October the sixth or seventh or something…it’s John Curten day, the day that John Curton dies or elected this prime minister or something, because this 4 years ago on that day Curtan University gave me a medal the John Curton medal. it’s actually for communities service, for doing good things for other people. First year after I got the medal…well other people came to see me get a medal, I should go and see them, so thinking I was just doing a duty but I really was impress with what I saw, because there aree people who done good things for the world, especially this part of the world, and are getting awarded, I was just really impress every year to see how people really giving and serving to other, it’s inspiring, so I went every year since, and this couple of weeks ago, well there was one lady there who done a hugh amount in around the Kalimantan area, when she got her medal, she came up to give a little speech, and said I don’t know why you giving it to me there is many other people who is much more deserving than me, and even my group this other people work much harder than I do…and she was saying all this stuff and I remembered…ah….here we go again, why can’t you see that actually you do deserved that, cause when I was listen to what she did …amazing woman, how much she given and sacrifice so for no reward for thirty or forty years of her live given to others, you really deserving that medal, but could she says she deserved it? no, you know I did the same when I got the medal, what the hack you giving it to me for there’s many other people work harder than me, me too, I could not see the beauty of myself, really what I should have done is go up and say thank you very much I do deserved this medal, well it was true I did deserve it, (chuckle) and she deserved it, why can’t people accept praise? Because we have this terrible feelings of ourselves of inadequacy, some forces been hammered into us to always admit your faults and to reject your finer points. No wonder human beings gets so sick, if you make a mistake remember it, feel remorse make amends, you do something good, no no no that’s usual, I’m not going to look at it, I’ll just get big headed, if I keep remembering my finer points. You don’t get big headed, if you receive praise, and acknowledge it, accept it embrace it, you get big hearted, not big headed big hearted. So there’s a symptom that we call lack of self esteem. The inability to see oneself as other would see it and actually praise oneself and value oneself and see the beauty in oneself, that’s what happen when you get still, you don’t just see the beautiful grass on the hill side, when you go more slowly, you often see yourself, you can be absolutely stunt just how much beauty you can see inside of yourself, you never thought that was there cause you been going too fast, when you slow down, amazing you blossom, you just unfold, some of the stuff inside of you never seen before it just so clear in front of you, delightful, beautiful, wonderful, you look at yourself, wow! I am ok, actually I’m more than ok this is amazing this is wonderful .

Why is that so hard to accept even very idea of that, some of you were so cringing against the idea of thinking yourself as beautiful, wonderful, incredible, you can do that and that’s what happen. So a person when start slowing down, meditating, living a more peaceful life, they have much more respect for themselves, even admiration for themselves, now what admired what they respect, is like the flower they grow and grow and grow, eventually they just take over the garden smothered the weeds. The beautiful part of yourself, once its appreciated notice embrace accepted, recognised that grows and all that other little stuff which your fault, your negativity, all that other stuff that causes problems in your life that vanishes. You know what this is called? The path of enlightenment., the path of freedom, the path to joy to happiness. Now focus on it the positive attitude toward yourself to others to life in general, even to death.

What ever happens in life embrace it see it’s beauty, it just a circle of life going round, the winters, the springs, the summers, and of course it’s not so bad I think cause I don’t know, I am over here in Australia, yeah the global finances crises. Complete different subjects. Get this wonderful simile, I was sharing it with so many people, like a place like Singapore. Do very very well about the finances, says it’s like a financial winter, grow than the northern hemisphere, I remember in England, in the winter you go outside the city and you won’t see a leave on the trees, the flowers were all dead, it was no life, even the animal were hiding underground, sleeping, hibernating, in the deep winter time out side of London every thing was grey, dead, trees are like skeleton in the forest. Nothing was alive, there was no hope it was cold and dead a withered landscape. Like an economic crises, but you know what, underneath the soil, you knew this because you’ve seen it so many time, underneath the soil there were seeds, the animal it was alive, powerful life just waiting, waiting for the time, for the warmth the tiny bit of rain, to germinate, than you got the spring month, march or April, suddenly the whole landscape were just bursting with life with greenery, or this animal will jump out and starts to mate and all sorts of hanky panky. which all other monk should…but anyway this just life. that is what you see, what was dead and hopeless and cold and whither, was now full of energy and life and beauty and vibrant, as always whatever happens in life is that the cycle we go through, is that economic crises in like economic winter time, and you know that winter time is always follow by because it’s cycle for the world, you know that, but we forget it, it’s too easy to get depress in winter time, but those of you who have more experience can see in that winter time a beautiful pause, the pause of our lives, when many people are force to something more important than economic activities. It’s just reminder time like in winter time we can stop and be still and peaceful, when not so many things moving, when we see the beauty in dead tree, wee see the beauty in the lifeless landscape, there’s stillness the life inside. Than you know that this is just one part of the wheel. This is all it is right now, in our economic time in your life cancers death falling in love getting married getting divorce having kids, all that sort of stuff, the cycle of our life.

So when it is winter, always know there’s spring coming soon, you know it happen, you’ve been there before, but don’t forget. This is a positive side of life, and you see it more and more, more still you get, so take time in life, don’t go with running around, we have to run sometimes, but at times you just slow down and stop, to remind yourself to centre yourself. That’s what meditation is all about, learning how to stop, but we…. sometime people don’t meditate properly, when they meditate they try and achieve something else, trying to go for it, sometime people just will get more stress out when they’re meditate than before they started. You are trying too hard, you know some meditation object we don’t recommend, like some one told me this a couple of days ago, in Buddhism we don’t recommend meditating on a candle, cause it burn your bottom, (chuckle) and that’s today joke, it doesn’t improve with the years, and there is one I haven told before. Meditate for peace for stillness, cause in stillness you see more deeply, you see more beautifully, and your positive attitude in life grows and grows and grows, that’s why the national institute for clinical excellence, which is the arm of the British national health service, which does test therapy find what is the best for the amount of money they have to spend, testing depression, or rather therapy for depression, compared three type of treatment, medication, cognitive behaviour therapy, which is basically counselling and meditation, which one were the best? of course you know meditation, by far the best, so the British national health service the preferred therapy for depression is meditation, they can only find, enough people to teach it, it works, hopefully today I’ve shown why it works. Stillness exposes beauty and power and energy, without power and energy and positivity and that beauty, wow! you’re not just gonna heal depression, you just gonna go and create a beautiful world expecting your beauty, be able to go to prison and see prisoners change like a catharses, if you do that with prisoners, with rappers with murderers, what can you do without this? what can you do with yourself? to heal to grow and to get out of the shit pile once and for all and leave for the heaven, that’s how we become positive. Thank you for lietening.

心境衰老

2010-06-17T04:59:00.000-07:00

    瑞土的一位记者，去访问意大利新任首相盖斯帕里  （Alcide de Caspari）  ，他对那位首相说 ：『这可能是我最後一次的新闻访问。我已经六十五岁了，快耍退休了。』     盖斯帕里不以为然地看了他一下：『真可惜!也六十五岁了，可是我的事业却刚刚开始哩!』     年龄只是一种心理状态，它有两种成长方式，一种是你可能长大，另一种是你可能变老。年龄大 并不一定是老，真正的衰老决定於心境，所谓『哀莫大於心死』!正是心境衰老的说明。     美国麦克阿瑟将军（Douglas Mac Arthur 1880-1964）说过一句名言：『老兵不死』。     曾经四次出任英国首相的政治家格莱斯顿（William Ewart Gladstone 18O9-1898），八十岁   的时候，才爬上他政治事业的高峰。罗马政治家加图（MarCcus Porcius Cato 95-46B．C．），直到八十高龄，才开始学习希腊文。

米开朗基罗（Michelangelo  Buonarroti1475年3月6日－1564年2月18日）  ，这位意大利的艺术冢，九十岁的时候，还在继续着他的不朽杰作。

    英国小说家福尔斯特（Edward Morgan Forster 1879-1970）  说得好：『应该避免将老龄和老化混为一谈。老化差不多是无论在什么年龄都能侵袭我们的感情。』     想想肴：你真的老了吗?如果你认定自己已经老了，那么，你是老得活不下去了，可是，你每天不都还在活得好好的吗！千万千万！别允许你的心坟衰老下去。

时间观念

2010-06-16T04:30:00.001-07:00

    时间的长短，绝不能以计算单位的数字来表现，而是以因人差异的观念来衡量。

     对於我们大多数人来说，总是懒於计算今天，甚至觉得今天难於应付。究竟，今天只不过是二十 四小时，或一千四百四十四分或八万六千四百秒所构成。但是，对每一个人的人生来说，今天，才是 最重要的，在时间观念里，唯有今天，才是最能被我们所主宰，所能掌握得住。

     请听听挂在墙角那座小钟的诉说，它的一天生活是如何消磨。它每秒滴答二次，它每天就得发出 十七万二千八百声。十年下来，它将要滴答了六万万三千万零七十二万声。多可怕，这怎么不叫它精 神崩溃?这时，在它对面一座老钟低语着：「别傻了，孩子，你所要做的，仅仅是一次滴答一声而已 。」小钟听了蓦然醒悟，它滴滴答答地活了一百年。

    当我们面对着一项重大工作，将要失去勇气时，我们可以想想这个钟的寓言。我们所有的工作，正如这个钟一样有很多滴答声，但一次只做一点。
    你必须具有这种时间观念：现在最重要，今天最重要。未来的事，全系於今天。   今天的事，又系於今天的切实的思想，切实的工作。不要让多余的胆怯，在你心上投   下了阴影。

问你的照片

2010-04-29T07:14:00.001-07:00

美国中西部一个国际大公司的总经理在视察他的旧金山办事处时，注意到一个名叫多萝西·琼斯的私人秘书的办公室里挂着一幅他本人的大幅照片。“多萝西小姐，在这么小的房间里，这张照片不是显得太大了些吗?”他问道。多萝西答道：“当我有了一个问题时，你知道我做什么吗?”她没等回答，就做出一个姿势：两肘放在写字台上，两只手叠在一起，支撑着她的头，眼睛向上看着照片，口里说：“老板，你想怎样解决这个鬼问题呢?” 多萝西的话似乎是很幽默的。然而她想法的实质是令人可惊的。也许你在办公室、你的家庭或你的钱包里有一幅照片。这幅照片也许是你的母亲、父亲、妻子或丈夫，也许是富兰克林或林肯，也可能是一位圣哲。你的照片可以对你生活中的重要问题提供正确的答案。当你面临着一个严重的问题或决定时，你向你的照片提一个问题，并倾听它给予的回答。

天生赢家

2010-04-27T23:53:00.000-07:00

    “停下来去考虑你自己的事吧。”遗传进化学家舍菲尔德说， “在整个世界史中，没有任何别的人会跟你一模一样。在将要到来 的全部无限时间中，也决不会有像你一样的另一个人。”     是的，你是一个很特殊的人。为了生下你，许多斗争发生了，这 些斗争又必须以成功告终。想想吧：数以亿计的精细胞参加了巨大 的战斗，然而其中只有一个赢得了胜利——就是构成只是你的那 一个!这是为了达到一个目标而进行的一次大规模的赛跑：这个目标就是包含一个微核的宝贵的卵。这个为精虫所争夺的目标比针 尖还要小，而每个精虫也是小得要被放大到几千倍才能为肉眼所 见。然而，你的生命的最决定性的战斗就是在这么微小的场合上进 行的。     精虫中的染色体所包含的全部遗传物质和倾向是由你的父亲 和他的祖先所提供的；卵核中的染色体所包含的全部遗传物质和 倾向则是你的母亲和她的祖先所提供的。你的母亲和父亲本身代 表20多亿年前为生存而战斗的胜利的极点。于是一个特殊的精虫 ——最快、最健康的优胜者——同等待着的卵结合起来，就形成一 个微小的活细胞。         最重要的生命已经开始，你已经成了一名冠军，正如你将来的 成功。     你生来便是一名冠军，现在无论有什么障碍和困难处在你的 道路上，它们都不及你在成胎时所克服的障碍和困难的十分之一 那么大哩!