Ajahn Brahm: The Happiness Journey

While rushing over to attend Ajahn's talk, my reservist camp mate asked me. Why do I need to attend talks on happiness? Am I unhappy? My reply to him was, life has been good for me now and thus I have the best condition to train to be happy :)

As usual, wherever Ajahn held his talk, his loyal audiences follow him and flood the premises. Right up to the font gate of Kong Meng Shan Monastery, crowds gathered and cars queuing up, making their way into the temple. And Ajahn is as ever sitting there on the stage greeting the audiences minutes earlier than the start of his talk.

Ajahn start off by sharing his story of the chicken farmers and poo. Every morning, chicken farmer A will go into the pen and collect chicken poo and brings it home, leaving the eggs behind and house stinking by the gathered poo. He is a stupid chicken farmer. Chicken farmer B would go into the pen and collects the egg, leaving the poo in the pen to rot and becomes useful fertilizer, and he gets to use the egg to make delicious omelette for his family. He is the smart chicken farmer.

Meaning of the chicken farmer story is to remind us that we should remember and cherish good memories to motivate us forward. The chicken eggs are in this case our good memories. Don't blame ourselves for our mistakes and beat ourselves down. Yet, it is as unhealthy to just suppress and forget the past pain and mistakes we went through. The feeling of not accepting the past, of not feeling whole can be very troubling. Only by opening our heart to ourselves can we start growing.

That also applies to families. Remember the happy moments and what works to make an event/outing or any gathering successful and develop the next event from there. There is higher chance of getting happiness.

Ajahn mentioned that people nowadays has so much resources,buying big houses, enjoying riches and yet unhappy. Happiness can never be achieved through striving for a bigger house but a bigger heart. He recommended a way to meditate by imagining circles surrounding him. Those in the circles nearer to him are those he loves and care. And those that he hate and dislike will be at the circle furthest away from him. Then, we can start expanding this circle to reach the outermost ring. It is not about housing more people into the inner circles but how to allow the circles to enlarge.

On questions on how not to lie when hitting sales targets and inadvertently having to lie. Buddhist work to achieve a win-win situation. But being genuine with our claims, selling only things that benefits, thus better the reputation and foster a better clientele base. 

For parents and spouse, we should always have an amnesty to forgive people that is willing to own up their mistakes. Partners lie to each other, kids lie to their parents and people in the society lies to each other because they are afraid of the punishments and anger on them when they are truthful. If we could promise others that we will accept what they did wrong without punishment, then trust and forthrightness can be established. Punishment only leads to more lies. Caging our kids to prevent them from making mistakes would only cause them to become rebellious. And on grieving over parents who have passed on, Ajahn mentioned about not reproaching ourselves for the mistakes we had made as being our parents, they would have readily forgiven us as well.

In career, Ajahn mentioned about striving with the best effort in the current task or role we in. When we are working, we should focus task by task and not multi-tasking. At times with family, no work and focus should only be with the family.

Ajahn shared about a case where a drug offender turned over a new leaf and went around doing talks to share his own bad past, encouraging and show people how they could change for a better. His contribution is enormous and has helped many people and youths. Yet, despite his deeds and potential ability to help more people, he was on death sentence. This shows a very wrong judicial system that focus on punishment than rehabilitation. There are also an instance where an aged jail warden contacted Ajahn, urging him to go back to his prison to continue his prison service. He mentioned that Ajahn has been the only counselor in his career having prisoners whom attended his service, never went back to their crimes.

In patient care, research has shown that patient recover faster through care than medical intervention. Role of a doctor and nurse should focus on care rather than solely medical assistance.

Ajahn end the talk by sharing a famous exercise to be done everyday to lift up the spirit. It is to do 20 counts of push-ups on the side of the lips and looking at the mirror :) Although initially one may have to fake the smile but it is much better than looking sad. And once the fake motion becomes a habit, the smile will come naturally.

Fellow audiences do feel welcomed to add on the list of points by commenting, allowing more people to grow happy.