Day 364/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

Very good.

So welcome everybody to today's meditation class.

A few more people coming in.

And as usual,

Those who are coming to the Introduction to Meditation,

A series of four classes for those who haven't meditated before,

That is being held in the room to my right,

With John who is teaching the Introduction to Meditation class,

A series of four classes for those who have not meditated before.

That's the room to my right over there.

You just go out and you can see the people coming,

Going into that room as well.

So this is the ongoing class.

You just go out,

You go out the door and it's to the right.

Because over here we do longer meditations and it's a bit hard for those who haven't meditated before.

Excellent.

So this class,

After people finish off the Introduction to Meditation class,

It's great that they have a place to go to actually to continue their practice of meditation at a deeper level.

And so because of that in this class,

Not only do we sit for longer periods of time,

But also that we start talking about other things which happen in meditation,

Especially when you get past the beginning stages.

You're meditating,

Getting very peaceful,

Not sleepy and the mind gets very awake.

And one of the questions which often comes up,

And so I wanted to address it today,

Is what happens when you're having a very peaceful meditation.

You're watching your breathing,

Coming in and going out,

And it starts to become very calm,

Very peaceful,

And then the breath starts to disappear.

And at the same time often you feel your body and that's almost vanishing and you can't even feel this body.

What happens next?

And there is a simile which I often use on retreats,

Meditation retreats,

To describe this phenomena,

And it's called the simile of the thousand petal lotus,

And as the lotus receives the warmth and the light of the sun in the morning.

For those coming,

By the way,

I'll just interrupt a little bit,

Coming to the Introduction to Meditation class,

A series of four lectures,

The introductory class,

That is being held not in this room,

In the room to my right,

This is the ongoing class where we meditate for much longer and the instructions are more focused on deeper meditation.

And sometimes you won't know what on earth I'm talking about when you start looking at the.

.

.

Even many people here don't know what earth I'm talking about,

But nevertheless some people do,

So that's why we mention it here.

And sometimes you're meditating,

The body starts to disappear,

The breath is starting to get very,

Very peaceful.

What is happening here?

You're getting very,

Very calm and peaceful with the simile of the thousand petal lotus.

The lotus closed up at night time and when the sun rises in the morning,

The first warmth and light from the rays of the sun hit the outermost sheath of the lotus and that causes the outermost sheath to open up and you go inside to where the real first petals of the lotus are.

So they can receive the light and warmth of the sun,

So they open up and the light and warmth of the sun open them up.

And so the lotus opens up level by level by level,

Deeper and deeper and deeper you go inside the lotus.

The deeper you go,

The more fragrant are the petals which stands for the happiness and joy and the more beautiful they are and the more refined they are.

You're going in,

In,

In,

In,

Into your body and into your mind to see what's right there in the center.

And so this going in is what we do.

So how that relates to the meditation,

All the time the light and the warmth of the sun,

The light stands for the mindfulness,

The awareness,

So you're actually seeing what's going on here and the warmth stands for the kindness.

Remember warmth is always inviting,

Allowing people to come in.

It is not being fierce and having strict entry requirements,

It's like warm,

Accepting,

Embracing,

Opening the door of your heart to whatever's happening right now in the body or mind.

If anything you might try and call it unconditional mindfulness,

Awareness.

Just being aware with a smile,

With warmth,

With compassion but not pushing or pulling anything away.

So what we do,

That's how we look at our body and mind.

And those of you who've been through this Saturday afternoon class here,

Relaxing the body to the max,

Aware of it,

Kind to it and feeling everything,

Getting nice and easy and peaceful and you may notice that when your body really relaxes very deeply,

First of all it feels delightful and after it feels delightful it's very easy for it to disappear.

For those of you who have problems with insomnia,

Just doing that amount will help a huge amount with any problems of going to sleep at night.

You're sitting down,

Laying down in bed,

Achy or pain there,

And a lot of that is pain which is emotional related to what happened during the day and then you can relax everything away in your body until your body feels so delightful it vanishes and you've fallen asleep,

Have a nice night's sleep.

However,

Sometimes once the body is relaxed and go into the thing we call our mind,

It's not your body which is keeping you awake,

It's certainly your mind which is not relaxed.

So if your mind is not relaxed,

Of course you won't be able to become peaceful and calm.

The whole idea of relaxing the mind.

So how do we relax the mind?

Well we notice the past and the future is what,

Looking for visual aid,

I'll use a piece of tissue,

This is your mind.

The past putting you one way,

Future putting you the other way,

Bang,

That's when you have emotional problems.

Thank you.

So don't get stretched and being pulled,

That's called strain,

Stress,

And sometimes that's what it's like when you meditate,

You've been pulled by the past,

By all this unfinished business and of course what's done is finished.

Leave it alone for goodness sake.

Later on some will finish it or see what happens.

And the future,

All the worry and concern about what might happen next,

Leave that alone too.

So when you go inside your mind,

The first layer of petals you're going inside is a layer of petals called time.

You go inside time to the present moment and in the present moment you've still got the commentary going on,

It's like this,

It's like that.

You go inside the commentary,

Right inside this moment where there's no time to say anything.

You're right here in the moment.

Maybe the nearest simile for most people,

When I was a lay person,

Used to listen to classical music.

Every note,

Every moment was just so important you couldn't even talk to your friend about how great that performance was.

You had to be right here in this moment to appreciate the sound.

Right in the middle of time there's no time at all for commentary so the mind becomes very quiet.

No thoughts,

The inner silence.

You're going in from just inside the body,

Inside of time,

The present moment,

Inside of silence.

And inside of that silence,

That's usually where people find the breathing.

The only reason you feel the breath is because it's the only thing still moving.

Breathe in,

Breathe out.

And here your heart is still moving but it's the breath which is grossest and so that usually takes your attention,

Even if you don't go looking for it.

So inside this moment you find the breath.

And you find the breath,

You're just breathing in,

Breathing out,

But then you go deeper into it.

So you see the whole of the breath from beginning to the end is the in-breath starts.

Stops and then the out-breath begins.

Of course I'm forcing that,

You don't make any sound.

It happens naturally but this is the breath as it comes in and you see the hold of the breath and it gets calm,

You get to the calm breath.

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Natural and peaceful and smooth and slow.

Why does that happen?

It's a natural phenomena because look at what's happening.

You're sitting here,

Not moving.

Body's all relaxed.

You are not worried by the past or the future,

You're not thinking so much.

You're not burning energy because you're not burning the energy by worrying,

By thinking,

By doing stuff.

It means you don't need so much oxygen to metabolize.

Everything gets calm.

So it's like the engine is just purring rather than spluttering.

It's just a very light hum of the mind because it's not doing very much.

And when it gets very still,

That is when the breath starts to disappear and the body is disappearing.

And this is the main part,

Just come into this part now,

Where people often just have problems.

Ahh,

The breath is disappearing,

I'm going to die.

You don't die.

All the years that I've been teaching meditation,

Teaching retreats here and overseas,

Never once has a person died during the meditation or meditation retreats.

No casualties for all these years because they don't happen.

Other reasons they meditate.

When people used to ask,

Is meditation dangerous?

So it's not as dangerous as not meditating.

Then you get into great problems and difficulties.

But you just be still and silent.

The breath goes,

Oh,

It's natural,

The body has its own regulator.

If you need to breathe,

It will breathe.

You are still breathing but it's so light,

The body is not registering it.

Just like,

Are you aware of your heartbeat right now?

Of course you're not.

It's still happening so you don't have to worry,

Oh,

I don't know my heartbeat,

That must mean my heart is not beating.

Just you're not aware of it,

It's not a problem,

So just the mind just leaves it alone.

So your breath is going to start to disappear.

Great.

And sometimes people wonder,

What should I do next?

Wrong question.

Remember in this meditation,

You should have let go of time a long,

Many moments earlier,

Just now.

It's not what you should do next,

What's happening now.

Just be kind to it.

Being kind with the unconditional mindfulness means you don't choose.

You let your mind decide whether it just wants to watch the breath,

Wants to watch the stillness,

Wants to watch what comes next,

Which is the deep sense of peace and joy and these beautiful lights which come up called nimittas,

And let the mind decide.

You stop making the decisions.

You stop calling the shots.

You just let this go on by itself.

You know that sometimes when great athletes,

Sportsmen,

Performers,

Musicians,

When they used to call that getting into the zone,

Going with the flow,

When they're performing a great piece of music,

Their hands are moving,

They're playing faultlessly and there's no effort at all.

They just let go and let the,

What some people say,

Let the music play them.

Let the dance just happen.

And they feel that they're just in their body,

Perfectly aware,

Just watching all these things happen as if it's not them.

It's just a process.

And they're just being a silent observer who doesn't interfere.

So that stage in the meditation,

Things are really happening well.

So just be an observer,

Don't interfere,

And enjoy the wonderful feeling of being in the zone,

Going deep into the mind,

Utterly pleasant,

Very safe.

And for those people who say,

Oh,

Well,

I'll get in here for ages and ages,

They always come out again,

And very quickly usually,

And if you really do this a lot,

Because you don't want to interfere with anything,

And say,

Oh,

It's time to come out,

I've got an appointment in another ten minutes,

What should I do?

That's not exactly appropriate in the deep meditations.

If you ever get into these deep meditations often,

When you start meditating,

You just tell yourself,

I have to come out at four o'clock or three ninety-eight,

Because I've got to alert people of _____.

Otherwise you'll end up like that monk in the eastern states some years ago.

It's a true story.

I like weird stories,

But this is a true story.

He was leading a nine-day meditation retreat,

And it started off on a Friday afternoon,

And everyone came and they checked into the meditation retreat centre,

And after checking in and getting their rooms and getting the initial briefing,

They went to have half an hour meditation followed by the first talk by this monk,

And after the half an hour meditation,

The monk hadn't opened his eyes.

So they went off for another half an hour just meditating,

And after another hour the monk was just sitting there,

Hadn't moved.

And by about nine or ten o'clock the monk still hadn't opened his eyes to start the first talk.

So you know what they did?

They all went to bed.

When they got up in the morning for the first bit of chanting or morning meditation,

The monk hadn't moved,

Was still there.

When it came to the breakfast,

The monk didn't ring the gong,

He was just sitting there.

And that morning talk,

The monk just sat there.

Lunchtime,

The monk never moved.

He sat there for eight days without going to the toilet,

Without eating anything,

Drinking anything,

Not moving at all.

Isn't that cool?

Now don't think that I'm going to do that today because I've got an appointment this afternoon.

But as soon as he came out,

He apologised,

And so he should have done,

Because the rules are the training is in meditation,

For deep meditation,

You tell yourself when you're going to come out.

Pre-program it.

And he forgot to do that,

So he just sat there for eight days.

But anyway,

It was quite okay because all the people there said,

Oh,

No,

He's apologised,

I didn't give you any talks,

It doesn't matter,

It was an inspiration to see that that stuff is still possible these days.

You know,

Meditation goes so deep,

So peaceful,

That you can just sit there without moving for such a long time and everything is fine.

So anyway,

So if that happens to you,

Just tell yourself,

Remember beforehand,

I've got to come out at 3.

45 or 4 o'clock,

Or at least by 4.

30,

Because otherwise we've got to lock up after that.

So usually what happens if somebody is in deep meditation or sitting here,

We usually take them and put them outside so we can lock up.

Otherwise we have to wait for you,

The poor caretakers,

Until you come out of your meditation.

So you don't know,

I think,

Anyway,

But you're perfectly okay.

So that's just what happens in those states of meditation.

You always go inside,

Go inside,

Go with the flow,

Just don't interfere,

And just be this silent observer,

Just sits there and just watches,

And doesn't interfere at all,

And just enjoys the peace,

The profoundness,

The bliss of the deep meditations,

Da da da.

Okay,

So let's give it a try.

So if you want to get in your meditation posture,

Whatever that is.

Okay,

So let's go into meditation.

And with your eyes closed,

You can become more sensitive,

Feel,

Experience sensations on your body.

You start with your legs,

Just make sure everything is in your body.

And feel it's okay there.

It's like checking before you leave,

Or like when you have a park,

Your car,

And walk in this room before you leave your car,

And make sure there's no variables visible,

That everything is locked,

You haven't left any,

Like,

Animals in the car which will suffer from the heat,

Check everything is okay.

And then you can leave your vehicle with no need to think about it,

You know it's safe.

It's like your body,

Moving it until you find it's the best posture.

It won't need to disturb you over the next 40 minutes.

Starting with your legs,

And then when they're comfortable,

Your butt.

If you don't get a good position for your buttocks,

Sometimes the blood around the skin to the nerves gets cut off,

And your legs,

They go numb,

Go to sleep,

Pins and needles,

Whatever you call it,

Simply because you didn't adjust your butt in a good position to begin with.

And your back,

You can lean forward if you wish,

Or lean back,

However you feel comfortable.

Stretching the back,

Which I like to do.

See little dogs,

Big dogs,

Animals,

Kangaroos doing that,

Stretch,

Cats too.

Humans do as well,

This human.

Finding a good position for my back,

For my spine,

And go up to my shoulders,

Loosen them.

Imagining the shoulders like bunches of strings on either side of the spine,

Being pulled about sometimes,

That's called stress,

Strain,

Tension.

Imagining both ends being loosened.

See if I can feel the association between strings and muscles.

When I can imagine strings being loosened and muscles get loosened too.

Mindfulness is like getting information,

Feeling just that one part of the body and how it is.

And soon I learn from repeated experience how to relax the muscles in my shoulders.

And down my body to my hands.

Because where your hands are usually defines,

Obviously,

The position of your arms.

So make sure my hands are comfortable.

They don't have to be on my lap or on my knees,

Wherever they feel comfortable.

And sometimes I lead meditations holding the microphone in one hand.

It's easy.

That means I can't put my hands in my preferred position.

But it's good enough.

They go up to my neck.

Still,

After a little cough,

I had a cold last week,

Slight irritation,

But it's no problem at all.

I notice it and relax.

It's amazing when you put your attention on something,

You learn so much about it.

And give it kindness,

Give it compassion.

Imagine the neck relaxing.

And go up to the front face,

Muscles around the eyes and the mouth,

Mostly.

Feel them.

Get to know how they are.

And if there is any tightness,

Any stretching,

I just learn how to let go and feel the muscles relax.

The furrows on the forehead start to relax.

Muscles around the mouth tend to be at ease.

Everything relaxes to the max.

I was just playing around with the instructions last night.

Just go to your ears and relax the hearing.

So it's not tight.

You don't expect to have pure silence.

When things are relaxed,

Any impingement of sound or noise on your ears,

It doesn't resonate.

Your hearing is at ease,

So nothing disturbs it or disturbs it far less.

Relaxing your hearing.

And then lastly to your brain,

Just imagining this lump of grain matter which is not really grain.

Just imagine just taking it out and putting it in bed for a little while,

Giving it a break and go back to work by going in your skull afterwards.

As we overwork our brain,

It's only imagination if you can find another metaphor for a visual image which helps you just be kind to your brain.

Don't work it.

And then I imagine,

I don't imagine now,

I feel the whole body,

This connected organism just sitting.

Every part of it I look after.

And when I look at it,

Experience it as a whole,

It's a peace.

And peace is joy.

Joy is delightful.

So I'm just with my relaxed,

Joyful body.

That's my object of meditation to start with.

Having been aware and being kind onto this body.

And soon you'll just go inside to the mind.

Go inside for once in a while,

Still have ideas of time.

The past where you came from,

With all the bruises and the wounds and the medals and the certificates,

Put them all away.

To your future with all the fears and hopes,

The dreads and the can't wait for it to happen,

All in the future.

Now is where your future is being made.

This moment is only time you can do anything for your future.

So I go inside this moment.

So imagine relaxing the extremes of time,

Relaxing being kind to the past,

Having positive feelings for the future,

Allows me to be kind and come into this moment.

By the simile of the lotus,

Awareness,

Kindness,

Allowing me to go in,

Opening up this thing called my body and mind.

I go right in the center of time.

So perfectly in this moment,

You don't have any width to think.

There's no space to write a comment.

It's like you're too busy enjoying this moment to give it a name.

And inside this moment,

You may come across the bleeding.

It comes to you.

If it does,

Just continue being aware and being kind.

Nothing else is needed.

And I'll start speaking again in another half an hour.

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So close to the end of this meditation.

How do you feel?

How peaceful,

How delightful.

Oh,

The joy of peace.

Not in the mountain,

Not in a cave,

In not a mile,

In your heart,

Any place you can go inside.

So now we can go three times.

Okay.

So as usual,

First of all,

We have some questions from overseas and from USA,

From Romania,

From New Zealand.

And after those questions from overseas,

If there's any questions from here,

To the overseas ones first,

Gives a chance for people to start to get their mind and brain working.

From USA,

How does one hit the letting go button during meditation?

Even when we are fully aware that we're only feeling the suffering ourselves.

It's try this,

Try that.

But it's one of the best ways of hitting the letting go button.

It's just a metaphor.

It's when we learn just with our body,

We have an ache,

A pain somewhere.

So it's not a big pain.

It may be that,

You know,

For me,

I see some people with blankets on,

But for me it's too hot in here.

If I had a machine I'd be putting the air-cons down.

But I can't change anything.

So what do I do?

Let go.

When I let go,

Then I feel this feeling of heat,

The feeling of discomfort disappears.

You try with your body first of all.

You learn letting go on your body.

An ache,

A pain,

The more you worry about it,

The worse it gets.

When you're in the moment and you know the future in which to worry,

No past to give you a reference point,

You're just here.

You're letting go.

Letting go,

Another word for letting things be,

Is being kind,

Compassionate,

Opening the door of your heart to this moment no matter what it is.

You play around with this.

These are just words,

Concepts.

But when you know what I mean,

They point you to this letting go,

And you know it's letting go,

And the tightness,

The tension vanishes.

Please excuse me,

Another tissue is going to.

.

.

That is stretching.

That is letting go.

Peaceful,

Nothing breaks.

It's easy.

Little pieces of letting go.

You learn from what is coarse,

Worldly,

And then you do it on your body,

And it relaxes.

Then you do it on your mind,

Past,

Future,

And little by little you let go more and more until you're able to let go of control.

You're just sitting here,

Just watching,

See what happens.

Not being a driver,

Just being an observer,

Not being a control freak,

Not being a supervisor,

Looking over somebody's shoulder.

That's not how to do it.

Do it this way,

Do it that way.

In silence it's so easy to let go.

You're feeding the suffering ourselves,

But if you stop chatting and worrying and stuff,

Just the feed button sort of stops.

From Romania,

Sometimes after meditation I have so much joy and energy that I can't handle it.

Yay!

How can I skillfully use it?

Of course you can handle it.

Sometimes it's like a person who's only learned how to drive a Toyota and then they give them a Ferrari or a Bugatti or a Lamborghini or something.

Vroom!

If you don't know how to use all that power,

Of course you know that you might still make a few mistakes,

But if you know how to use the energy and the power of meditation,

It's wonderful.

So just keep it inside a little bit and then for all the wonderful things,

One of the things you can do,

You find you've got energy and power after meditation,

All those problems,

Difficulties,

The things you've got to solve.

It's so easy when you've got a powerful mind to get innovative solutions to almost impossible problems.

You've got an illness somewhere,

An ache or a pain,

A knee which is hurting,

Zap,

And then the pain could go away.

And you've got energy,

You've got power,

Make use of it for your health,

Well-being,

Seeing deeply into things and helping other people,

Serving.

How can you really help other people?

You've got to empathize with them,

Connect with them,

See what they need,

What they want,

And just have this beautiful energy.

So don't handle it,

Or you'll learn how to handle the wonderful energy,

The more energy the better.

One thing,

If you do go on a retreat,

You get lots and lots of energy when you're meditating,

And then you go,

Oh,

I can't sleep.

What do you want to sleep for?

Sleep is a natural thing,

You've got lots of energy,

You don't need to sleep.

You can catch up on sleep later on,

And it's not hard.

Some meditation retreats,

You go to your room afterwards,

You lay down,

No way you're getting out of sleep.

You just lay down and relax the body,

Just like I said,

Relaxing the toes,

The feet,

Relaxing everything,

It's just really,

Really nice.

So the body is relaxing,

And just the mind not thinking,

So the very function of sleep is actually supplanted by meditation,

So you don't need to.

So that's great,

Just in case I'm meditating.

From New Zealand,

I meditated by listening to Buddhist mantras.

It helps me to focus by giving the mind,

The mind something to do.

Is this a proper meditation technique?

Yeah,

You can use Buddhist mantras.

You know my favorite mantra for using with the mind,

You're breathing in,

Breathing out,

Breathing in,

Breathing out.

Breathing out,

You say the word to yourself,

Shut,

As you breathe out,

Shut up,

Shut up.

Shut up.

So I always have a bit of fun and humor in meditation,

Otherwise it gets me so,

Please excuse me,

So religious.

So that's the religion I go out with,

Okay,

You're not allowed to laugh or smile or tell jokes.

But anyway,

The mantra,

You can start using a mantra if you want to,

But after a while just let the mantra disappear,

Fade away.

Every little technique has uses,

But sometimes it doesn't fit in the deep meditations.

Because once you start using a mantra,

You are exercising your mind,

Your brain,

Saying words,

And sometimes it's hard to go from there to no words at all,

To silence.

So if you do use a mantra,

Like shut,

So calm,

So shut,

And the silence takes over.

So that's,

Of course,

A proper meditation technique.

If it works,

It's a proper meditation technique.

If it don't work,

It ain't.

So basically you don't need to have it authorized by some sort of broad-headed fat monk,

Or nun,

Or whatever.

Why do you want it authorized?

Why do you want to ask that question?

Is it okay?

Is this right?

Is this not right?

You find out,

You know what peace feels like,

Stillness,

Joy,

Happiness,

The energy.

If it's going in that direction,

Just carry on.

Even though it's,

Well,

I haven't seen this in any books.

Actually,

I'll probably teach you to do something differently.

This is just the advice,

The suggestions,

All these little tools,

Like the buffet of meditation techniques and problem solvers.

You don't have to use every one of them.

Find out what works for you.

You can feel it.

Okay,

Now,

From those who are here and now,

In this room,

Any questions?

If you never feel like answering a question because people are even embarrassed putting their hand up,

What you can always do is get out of your smartphone,

And like somebody once did here,

And you put on the question from,

What do you say,

Question from Saudi Arabia by Mohammed something.

I got that once,

And I thought,

Wow,

This is an interesting question,

Because nobody knows if it's actually from you or not,

This is just what you say.

And then actually they were just sitting over there somewhere.

It was a way of getting their question anonymous.

So if you don't want to say your name,

Just get out of your smartphone and then you can write this question,

Then it might get through.

And the only reason they said that,

Because it was weird,

You know,

And of course the person who decides which questions get answered,

Imagine you get a question here from Hollywood,

Steven Spielberg,

And of course that will get to the top of the list and it will be answered,

That question.

Or Pope Benedict,

Italy.

I found Francis,

Isn't it?

Pope Francis,

Italy.

And of course that will be first on the list to get answered.

So you can have anonymous names.

Come on,

Any questions or we'll finish off?

What does it mean when you see a dragon during meditation?

A verbal dragon or a black dragon?

A black dragon,

Verbal dragon meditation,

I don't think I've ever said that before.

I just see it after a meditation,

So I was just wondering what it means.

Oh,

Nothing.

Nothing,

Doesn't mean anything.

No.

So,

Verbal dragon meditation.

No,

Not a verbal dragon,

While during meditation I'm seeing the image of a dragon.

Image of a dragon.

Oh,

Okay,

If you see an image of a dragon,

Make it nice and fun,

A nice smile,

Nice and kind.

Make it a very cool dragon and make it just.

.

.

In other words,

What happens is sometimes images come up.

It's probably because that's been in your mind because you've seen some picture or some image of it not that long ago and it's just a mind getting peaceful,

You see images come up.

Sorry?

Yeah,

So what happens,

You just let it come up.

Find the nice part of it.

Because every image which you can see,

There's always a beautiful part of it.

And allow them not to be thought-fighting and see like fear in it,

But find that little beautiful sparkly eyes of the dragon.

And just sometimes imagine a little dragon because people are afraid of it.

They always want to conquer dragons and stuff.

So instead of conquering it,

Say,

Dragon,

You can be my friend and give your dark dragon in your mind a nice big hug.

Do something which is a little different,

Get some kindness,

Some energy,

Some peace.

And if that image comes up,

Great,

You have a lot of fun.

Experiment and play.

Heh,

Heh,

Heh.

I think that's the snake.

I think that's cobra.

Cobra snake,

Oh yeah.

That was actually real,

That was an image.

So you already mentioned that now.

So there's this monk,

Still alive,

I saw him only last September.

But anyway,

He was meditating in the jungle in Thailand.

And other monks were there too.

And this,

Heard a big animal coming.

He opened his eyes,

All the other monks did too.

And it was a king cobra.

And these king cobras,

In that part of Thailand I was told there was a nickname for that type of snake.

It was called one-step snake.

And I said,

Why?

Because it's got no legs or feet.

So no doesn't refer to the snake,

It refers to the person.

When it bites you,

You've got one step and then you're dead.

So very venomous.

So this big king cobra came up and slithered up right in front.

Somehow or other knows who the head monks are.

And then just lifted up its head because it was level with the monk's face.

Eyeballing,

Opened its hood,

Right in front of the monk's nose.

And this monk lifted up his hand and patted the cobra on the head.

Thank you for coming to visit me.

And what did the cobra do?

The cobra love is so rare to get a blessing from a nice monk like that.

The cobra enjoyed every second of it.

How unique that would be.

Not every day does a cobra find a person to give a pat on the head.

And then when the cobra had enough patting on the head from that monk,

It drew in its hood,

Went down,

And went to see the next monk.

Lifted up his head.

And that monk said,

No way,

You can go back to him and put a pat on your head.

And of course,

It was those sort of,

Cobra just went away.

But anyway,

So sometimes those big cobras,

Of course,

He would never sort of type another snake story,

Yeah,

Another snake story.

This was in Australia.

There was,

I think first few years,

I went to talk in an old people's home in Pinjarra.

I remember where it was.

And just as one of these old people down there told me the story that one of his mates,

Many,

Many years ago,

He was out working.

He had a little daughter,

Maybe three,

Four,

Five years of age.

And one day she asked her,

Mum,

Can I have some milk please?

It was about 30,

40 years ago.

So my kid wanted some milk to drink,

Yes,

That's healthy.

So she gave him,

But mum,

Can I have it in a saucer please?

Okay.

So then the kid took the saucer outside.

And the mum was too busy to,

You know,

Wonder what the kid was doing.

But after three or four days,

Always asked about the same time in the afternoon for a saucer of milk.

The mum began a bit curious.

So she gave the saucer of milk to the kid.

The kid went out of the house and the mum followed it and saw the kid go to the side of the house.

You know,

When the houses were on stumps,

Raised above the ground,

Had it underneath,

Put the saucer down and called out to its friend.

And a big tiger snake came out to get the saucer of milk.

And imagine what a mum would feel.

There's your kid,

Here's the milk and there's a tiger snake over there.

And the kid,

The mum was froze in fear.

If she said anything,

Then that snake might have killed her daughter.

That's what she thought.

So she just froze in fear and then just that evening,

Told her husband,

Husband said,

I'll look after it.

Now this is many years ago.

And so the next day,

The kid asked for the saucer of milk,

As usual,

Same time.

Went to the side of the house,

Put down the saucer of milk,

Called out for its friend,

The snake came out from underneath the house,

Bang!

Shotgun killed the snake right in front of the kid.

The husband,

The father was in wait,

Thinking that's the way to protect the kid.

And he said from that day,

The kid refused to eat anything.

He eventually had to go to the local hospital.

And the word I remember him saying,

The kid fretted,

Fretted and would not eat and died in hospital.

As if like shooting that snake,

Which was the kid's friend,

Right in front of the kid,

You might as well aim the gun at his daughter.

There's no way that that,

I remember just telling this old man,

And they said,

Do you think that snake would have ever bitten that little girl?

He said,

Please excuse me again,

He said,

Not bloody likely,

He said,

This old Australian guy.

And so,

Sometimes kindness.