Free Will - a Failed Fantasy

0:00 Conrad told me tonight, actually, that he's a bit rusty. He used to be in charge of the AV team, and he stepped down to become a volunteer, and it's been quite a while since he's done it, and he told me that he might forget a few things. But so far, so good, Conrad. Thanks. Report an error in the passage at 0:00 Highlight the passage at 0:00

0:17 So we'll just do a... Maybe this is still a bit loud, Conrad, do you think? Yeah, it's too loud. Report an error in the passage at 0:17 Highlight the passage at 0:17

0:29 How's that? Still too loud. Report an error in the passage at 0:29 Highlight the passage at 0:29

0:35 Yes. Report an error in the passage at 0:35 Highlight the passage at 0:35

0:40 How's that? That's probably a bit better. I think, Conrad, you need to be back on the committee again organising the AV so you can get your skills up to scratch. Report an error in the passage at 0:40 Highlight the passage at 0:40

0:54 So we'll just do a half-hour guided meditation tonight and then I'll launch into the talk about free will. And maybe even after the meditation, if you want to stick around, I might give a few tips that have occurred to me recently with my own meditation practice and then we'll get into the free will talk. Report an error in the passage at 0:54 Highlight the passage at 0:54

1:15 So it's a two-for-one offer. We can do this two ways. I can do a guided meditation that I do with my five-year-old son, which is basically a body scan and then breathing. Or I can keep mainly quiet and we can just meditate on our own. So maybe we'll do a raise of hands for option A, the body scan guided for the five-year-olds. Report an error in the passage at 1:15 Highlight the passage at 1:15

1:39 And option B, I'll leave you to it on your own. Option A it is. Great. If it works for kindergarten kids, I think it can work for us. Okay, so we might just grab the lights, Conrad. Oh, Bill, thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:39 Highlight the passage at 1:39

2:02 Okay, so closing our eyes and finding a comfortable position. Usually when I'm putting my son to bed at night, he'll be lying flat on the mattress and he'll have his palms on the mattress and he'll be facing the ceiling and the lights will be out if you did want to run this with children. Report an error in the passage at 2:02 Highlight the passage at 2:02

2:31 And so then finding a comfortable position, we start the body scan with our toes. So we're just wiggling our toes and just feeling that they're there and there's no discomfort. Report an error in the passage at 2:31 Highlight the passage at 2:31

2:48 And then we come along to the soles of our feet. They're taking our weight all day and running around town and sometimes they can get a bit sore and that's okay, but we just acknowledge that they're there and maybe move them up and down. Maybe move our ankles. See if there's any tension in our ankles and let our feet rest. Report an error in the passage at 2:48 Highlight the passage at 2:48

3:16 Then moving further up the body, we come to the calf muscles and we tighten and loosen and tighten and loosen and finally tighten our calf muscles and loosen. And Report an error in the passage at 3:16 Highlight the passage at 3:16

3:36 then moving further up, we come to our knees and we can even just move our legs slightly and just maybe click our knees and just Feel if there's any pain or discomfort there. Give them a stretch. Not so much a problem for the young people, but for those of us getting a bit older, there's usually always a problem there. Report an error in the passage at 3:36 Highlight the passage at 3:36

3:57 And Report an error in the passage at 3:57 Highlight the passage at 3:57

4:01 then coming up to our thighs. And once again, we squeeze them three times, just to acknowledge that they're there. So we tighten and loose. And tighten and loose. And tighten and loose. Report an error in the passage at 4:01 Highlight the passage at 4:01

4:21 And then moving up to our stomach. In our stomach we just feel if there's any tension, is there any anxiety, is there any bad feelings in your stomach from any sort of worry you might be contemplating at the moment and Report an error in the passage at 4:21 Highlight the passage at 4:21

4:41 if there is it's not much you can do about it physically by tightening but what you can do is just feel the tension if there is and just be present with it and let it be and even give it permission, give permission to slow down. Report an error in the passage at 4:41 Highlight the passage at 4:41

5:09 And then moving further up our body, we come to our chest, another place that both children and adults can hold tension throughout the day. And we might just breathe three times into our chest and Report an error in the passage at 5:09 Highlight the passage at 5:09

5:28 out and Report an error in the passage at 5:28 Highlight the passage at 5:28

5:34 out and Report an error in the passage at 5:34 Highlight the passage at 5:34

5:40 out. And just checking if there's any tightness in our chest. Report an error in the passage at 5:40 Highlight the passage at 5:40

5:50 And if there is, again, perhaps we can just acknowledge it and let it settle. Because we don't have to worry about those problems now. Now we're just doing the body scan and our eyes are closed. Report an error in the passage at 5:50 Highlight the passage at 5:50

6:05 And then we move on to our arms. And we're feeling our arms and we're just feeling for tightness. And again, three times, we'll squeeze out both our arms, the whole lot at the same time. Squeeze and let go. And squeeze and let go. And squeeze and let go. And let our arms sink onto our laps and be completely relaxed now. And Report an error in the passage at 6:05 Highlight the passage at 6:05

6:40 then moving up closer to the end, we're now at the shoulders. And just feeling our shoulders and feeling if there's any tension in the traps and the muscle that runs between the neck and the shoulders. Again, this is a place where people can carry their worries and it manifests in the body. And again, you can just do three squeezes and give them permission to relax. So you can squeeze and relax. Report an error in the passage at 6:40 Highlight the passage at 6:40

7:09 Squeeze and relax. Squeeze and relax. Report an error in the passage at 7:09 Highlight the passage at 7:09

7:21 Now we move to the head. So we come to our face. And we feel the muscles of our face. We feel, is there any tension in our face that we're holding during the day? Especially for an adult, we've been in front of a computer screen all day, maybe doing spreadsheets or some intense sort of task, and typically you'll get tension around your eyes and maybe even around your jaw. Report an error in the passage at 7:21 Highlight the passage at 7:21

7:50 And so maybe you can just scrunch up your face. And then let it relax. And hopefully those worried brows disappear. And then finally moving to the back of the head, to the top of the neck. Again, another place if you've been in front of a computer all day. Or if you've been on the trades and working on the tools repetitively, maybe there's a bit of tension in the neck. Report an error in the passage at 7:50 Highlight the passage at 7:50

8:24 Maybe you can just acknowledge it and let it relax. Report an error in the passage at 8:24 Highlight the passage at 8:24

8:32 And then it's time for some breathing. So what we'll do is three deep long breaths, three medium breaths, three quiet breaths and then we'll follow our own breathing counting each breath as long as we can into the rest of the meditation and then I'll pull you out at eight o 'clock. So starting with the three deep breaths and Report an error in the passage at 8:32 Highlight the passage at 8:32

9:25 then three medium breaths and Report an error in the passage at 9:25 Highlight the passage at 9:25

9:47 then three quiet breaths. Feeling the movement of the air through the nostril and Report an error in the passage at 9:47 Highlight the passage at 9:47

10:15 now quietly following your breath and seeing if you can follow your breath through your nostril in and out to the count of 10 and then allowing yourself just to gently follow your breath for the rest of the meditation, not Report an error in the passage at 10:15 Highlight the passage at 10:15

· · · silence, 1 minute

11:50 following your thoughts and allowing your now relaxed body to sink as heavily as it can into the chair or the cushion and coming back to the breath, guiding Report an error in the passage at 11:50 Highlight the passage at 11:50

· · · silence, 1 minute

13:18 the mind back to the breath. Not getting caught up in thoughts or problem solving. Perhaps even counting 10 breaths again. Getting Report an error in the passage at 13:18 Highlight the passage at 13:18

· · · silence, 2 minutes

15:09 off the breath when there's too much thinking. Maybe go back to a sort of deeper breathing. Try for 10 medium breaths to try and bring the focus back to your body and off your mind. If Report an error in the passage at 15:09 Highlight the passage at 15:09

· · · silence, 2 minutes

16:58 you did detect any tension in any part of your body, perhaps now that we're calmer, you can try breathing through that tension. Report an error in the passage at 16:58 Highlight the passage at 16:58

17:09 If you had a little knot in your stomach or a tightness in your chest. Breathe in to that part and let it go out 10 Report an error in the passage at 17:09 Highlight the passage at 17:09

17:27 times if you can. If there's no tension, you can just follow the breath through your nostril. Report an error in the passage at 17:27 Highlight the passage at 17:27

· · · silence, 2 minutes

19:47 Mind's still wandering a bit. You can now do a body scan with the breath. So one breath into each part of the body that we went through to bring your mind off your mind and onto your body to relax. Just Report an error in the passage at 19:47 Highlight the passage at 19:47

· · · silence, 4 minutes

23:42 feeling the relaxed heaviness of the body. And once again, just trying to hold that breath. Focus on the breath and then I'll ring the bell three times. I Report an error in the passage at 23:42 Highlight the passage at 23:42

· · · silence, 2 minutes

26:20 hope that was good for everyone. I'd encourage you actually to, if you can, show that meditation to someone else under the pretext of, oh, this is what they do in Buddhism for kindergarten kids and then you won't have this pressure that you might stuff it up or you're some meditation master and you can pass on a bit of dharma. Report an error in the passage at 26:20 Highlight the passage at 26:20

26:46 So just before I talk about the free will, I did mention a handy meditation tip I'd come across recently. A monk's been visiting Perth from Cambodia called Dharmamanda, and he's been a monk since he was a teenager, and he's now almost 50, and in the forest tradition. tradition so he's He's the real deal and I had the privilege of getting to spend some time with him on retreat. Report an error in the passage at 26:46 Highlight the passage at 26:46

27:17 And for many years as a lay practitioner I'd spent a lot of time forcing myself to do an everyday meditation practice where I've got to get on the couch at 10pm or 5am in the morning or whatever it is and do my half hour to sort of supposedly build up up Report an error in the passage at 27:17 Highlight the passage at 27:17

27:42 stillness around meditation and that was definitely happening to a degree. But then I realised when I was meditating with this Dhammamanda that there is another way to do it and that might be not just to force yourself every day as part of a regimented lay routine to do your 30 minutes at the specific time and if you don't you're all guilty about it. Report an error in the passage at 27:42 Highlight the passage at 27:42

28:09 This year what's been working quite well is some days I won't do a meditation, but when I do a meditation now, I'll sit down for hours. Report an error in the passage at 28:09 Highlight the passage at 28:09

28:20 And previously I couldn't do this, like I couldn't hold it for more than sort of 45 minutes or an hour. And what I found was that by doing some physical exertion before the meditation, like a long walk that might go... For an hour or two or maybe even three if you've got the time and not talking, no phones, no music, whatever and just mindfully walking for that time and then coming back and sitting down on the couch and you'll find that the body's quite still and you can achieve much longer meditations with I believe better results doing a routine like this. Report an error in the passage at 28:20 Highlight the passage at 28:20

29:05 Because in lay life it can be, oh, I've got to do my meditation at 9.30 because I've got to put the kids to bed before that and then we've got to get up at 5am and the alarm goes off and it can all be just a little bit too difficult. You don't have the luxury of being the monks in the monastery where you've got almost all day sometimes to get in decent meditation. As a lay person you've always got some other pressure coming on. Report an error in the passage at 29:05 Highlight the passage at 29:05

29:27 Got to be at university or got to go to work. Yeah, so I guess this is something that That you could try a walk or something longer and that wears the body out a little bit and then going for a longer meditation. So maybe instead of doing your half an hour every day at 9.30 before bed, you might find an hour and a half every second day or something like that and just see how it goes. Report an error in the passage at 29:27 Highlight the passage at 29:27

29:56 But prepping the body like we do with the body scan here, prep the body by... Releasing tension by doing the walk or whatever it is that you do in silence and you might find that's a good result. So that's my tip for this year on meditation. And we'll do a Q &A after this and you can ask any sort of questions you want on the talk or on meditation. The monks, of course, are the real experts because they're the professionals doing it. Report an error in the passage at 29:56 Highlight the passage at 29:56

30:31 But I guess sometimes it's nice to hear from a lay person that's in a similar situation to you that can share the frustrations and sometimes the triumphs. Report an error in the passage at 30:31 Highlight the passage at 30:31

30:45 So as Ksenia said, this is now my 10th talk at the BSWA and I've been coming here for almost about 20 years now and started giving talks. Report an error in the passage at 30:45 Highlight the passage at 30:45

31:00 About 10 years ago, and I never volunteer for them. I get asked, and I'm waiting for them to stop asking me, but they haven't yet. And, yeah, last year I did sort of monks on Mars, which was Buddhism and the universe and cosmology, and the year before was dharma and the dinosaurs, which was using deep time to contemplate the dharma. Report an error in the passage at 31:00 Highlight the passage at 31:00

31:25 So this year I thought I'd just come back. Inside and talk about something that's fairly topical in contemporary philosophical society. People like Sam Harris and other philosophers are talking about, have been for the last few years, talking about free will quite a bit. And I personally was struggling with the concept for about a year leading up to around about February this year. And I asked Ajahn Brahmali if he would do a talk on... Report an error in the passage at 31:25 Highlight the passage at 31:25

31:57 On free will, which he did. It was a good talk. He actually turned it into two talks in February. And then he said to me, oh, well, Drew, why don't you, if you get invited to do a talk at Dharmaloka in the range retreat, why don't you two do a talk about free will, but from the layman's perspective? Report an error in the passage at 31:57 Highlight the passage at 31:57

32:19 Because his perspective was... As a monk, and he's been one almost his whole life, and he's very well versed in the suttas and very knowledgeable, but he's not living the life that we are now. And I guess for myself, about a year or so ago, I came to a realisation that no matter what I'd heard on these talks from these philosophers on the podcasts, that unfortunately there really is no Report an error in the passage at 32:19 Highlight the passage at 32:19

32:54 There is no free will and if you're going to be into Buddhism, the Buddha declares that Buddhism is the, to sum up Buddhism, it is the doctrine of non-self and the three stains of life I suppose the Buddha explained was non-self, impermanence and suffering or they call it unsatisfactoriness now. And so, of course, if there's non-self, then you can't have a free will. But we or I have been so conditioned over time to believe that this is the case. Report an error in the passage at 32:54 Highlight the passage at 32:54

33:34 And then upon examination over the last year, looking at different things in my life, I came to a realisation that there isn't. And this has implications, but just examining that in the first instance... Report an error in the passage at 33:34 Highlight the passage at 33:34

33:53 Where you're born is not your choice. Like, why am I born in Perth in a middle-class family and not born in a war zone in Africa with one leg? Report an error in the passage at 33:53 Highlight the passage at 33:53

34:05 I didn't will to be born in Perth into what is really probably a good circumstance. And, you know, those poor people that get born into those situations around the world most definitely do not want to be there. But no one has had any... Control over this. And then you go to the next stage and you think, oh, okay, so I'll just make the best of my life, so I'll use my example in Perth, and I'll go to university and I'll work really hard and get good grades and then I'll get a good professional job. Report an error in the passage at 34:05 Highlight the passage at 34:05

34:43 And you do that and you think that it's you. So that's what I did. I went to uni and got okay grades and sort of got an okay job. Report an error in the passage at 34:43 Highlight the passage at 34:43

34:53 And I was thinking it was me, but it's not. Because if I wasn't born into the family I was and had the support from my parents, not financial, I paid my own way through uni, but just sort of that psychological support and being in a stable society and having a fairly normal family. Most of it was up to that. It wasn't actually up to me. And then if you think about it even more, I went to university and got... Report an error in the passage at 34:53 Highlight the passage at 34:53

35:21 Almost distinction level type grades, around about 70%. But that wasn't even up to me either. That was up to my parents, the genetics from my parents. Because my mother happened to be like that. And then, yeah, I seemed to be quite similar to her mentally. And so then you start to think, oh, well, maybe it's just hard work. Report an error in the passage at 35:21 Highlight the passage at 35:21

35:42 Like at least I can do the hard work. Yeah, and you do the hard work. But you're only doing the hard work because you've been conditioned by your family and your schooling to do the hard work. So you're not even really in control of that. Because I found that when I went to university, I couldn't skip classes. I'd start feeling guilty. Report an error in the passage at 35:42 Highlight the passage at 35:42

36:08 And I couldn't lay in bed all day and not do the work. I didn't have any control over my will. I just sort of had to do it. Report an error in the passage at 36:08 Highlight the passage at 36:08

36:20 And on one hand, this feels a bit weird because the whole of society is geared up to say, if you work hard and you do this and that, then you'll succeed. Report an error in the passage at 36:20 Highlight the passage at 36:20

36:34 And all these speakers that go on the circuits, the motivational speakers, the Tony Robbins and the John Demartinis and that, you know, they make a lot of money out of pushing this message. Report an error in the passage at 36:34 Highlight the passage at 36:34

36:46 But I started to think about it and went, you know what? Okay, even if all that is not my will or my control, I thought about my business life. So I went through uni and ups and downs in the workforce and whatever and got made redundant. And then I started my own company, made these inventions, and it's been okay. And people go, oh, wow, you know. Report an error in the passage at 36:46 Highlight the passage at 36:46

37:14 You're so clever, you invented this thing and you picked the market at the right time and whatever and went out and sold it. And I think, no, actually, I just happened to be born into the circumstance at the right time. And I remember with my company, the first two years were really good and we got off to a great start. Report an error in the passage at 37:14 Highlight the passage at 37:14

37:37 I was high-fiving and I'm patting myself on the back, I'm the man. And then it all came crashing down because the market turned and the products we were selling, suddenly no one wanted to buy them anymore because the mining companies didn't have any money and they were making redundancies. And then I had to sit for three years and struggle along and earn like $30,000 or something, just keep the thing barely living and alive. And then it turned again and then the cycle turned and we got all this uplift and the money started coming in and... Report an error in the passage at 37:37 Highlight the passage at 37:37

38:12 Everyone's like, oh, yeah, you're doing really well. You must be good at business. I'm like, no, I'm just in the right place at the right time. And it's actually the market cycles that are dictating if we're making good money or not. Report an error in the passage at 38:12 Highlight the passage at 38:12

38:27 And if it wasn't me that came up with this particular product, because of the external circumstances and the demand for a product like that, actually, someone else probably just would have made it. Report an error in the passage at 38:27 Highlight the passage at 38:27

38:43 happened to fall into the right place at the right time. And so it can be quite disconcerting when you think about all that and you think, actually, I'm not really in control of everything or anything at all. Report an error in the passage at 38:43 Highlight the passage at 38:43

39:03 That can also become a little bit liberating, that you can't impose your will on the world and you're just bumping into all these people with all these different karmas and some's bigger and stronger than yours. Report an error in the passage at 39:03 Highlight the passage at 39:03

39:15 So it can be quite liberating because you can sort of let go a bit and say, you know what, if this is going to be successful, don't get the big ego about it, just go with it. And if it falls over... So I'm using the example of a company, but it could be a family circumstance or whatever. If it falls over, it's also not your fault as well. Things have just gone wrong and they're out of your control. Report an error in the passage at 39:15 Highlight the passage at 39:15

39:47 And I guess as long as you're trying the best you can without going overboard to a degree, degree, you can just let it go and be quiet. Report an error in the passage at 39:47 Highlight the passage at 39:47

40:04 Relaxed about things and I took this attitude a few years ago and I know that in the industry I work in with people who do similar things to me, I sleep pretty well every night actually and I know even just two days ago I was talking to a friend of mine who's in the business world and he's been suffering badly with his sleep because Report an error in the passage at 40:04 Highlight the passage at 40:04

40:37 sort of force this situation without going into the details of it and it's keeping him up at night, you know, and then that has health implications where really I think if you can just let go and say, you know what, I can't make this happen, I can try my best and maybe the circumstance around me will work it favourably, but... Report an error in the passage at 40:37 Highlight the passage at 40:37

41:00 It's not actually in my control. And then with this attitude, with letting go, it's not letting go of your duties or your family or responsibilities, but letting go of that, this then can come back into your meditation. Report an error in the passage at 41:00 Highlight the passage at 41:00

41:16 Because sometimes, you know, sitting down with the meditation and forcing yourself, right, I've got to meditate, you know, I've got to get these things they're talking about called the jhānas and get peace and whatever. Report an error in the passage at 41:16 Highlight the passage at 41:16

41:29 And sitting down in that meditation and trying to force things most definitely gets you nowhere. And the Buddha's saying that there is no self and you have to let go of the clinging to get the results. And this is, I guess, part of the beauty of the monastery where you can go to the monastery, You've dropped your identity, you've got your robes on, you've got all the time to meditate because you're letting go of the world because there's not much in the world that you can truly change. Report an error in the passage at 41:29 Highlight the passage at 41:29

42:16 The tracks are pretty much laid down. With the exception, I think that there is one significant thing that you can do in regards to free will. Report an error in the passage at 42:16 Highlight the passage at 42:16

42:31 things in your life for a better outcome and that's morality so that's ethics and and not misbehaving and so this ties into if Report an error in the passage at 42:31 Highlight the passage at 42:31

42:48 if you're familiar with the concept of everyone is, but karma, where... Report an error in the passage at 42:48 Highlight the passage at 42:48

42:56 We can't really control what's happening much in our family lives or our business lives or all the chaos that's going on in society. But what we can do is behave the best we can to generate good karma. And I think that by, say, following the five precepts, so we're not killing, stealing, lying, adultery, Report an error in the passage at 42:56 Highlight the passage at 42:56

43:43 creating this bad karma through our actions, which most definitely has to come back and be paid for later. Just in my life now, in a few different circumstances, even over the last week, I've been watching people who have, that I know, who have not, they're not Buddhists, and generally pretty good, but have been not following those precepts. Report an error in the passage at 43:43 Highlight the passage at 43:43

44:11 I mean, they don't even know about them, but anyway. And yeah, one guy, he was involved in bad behaviour about... ago and then just recently unexpectedly it's come it's come back to bite him and then someone else I know was involved in bad behavior around those five precepts 20 years ago and supposedly got away with it for about 19 years and then last year it all came out and it was just not worth the the, I guess, Pleasure at the time that may have been gained from short term bad behaviour compared to the consequences down the years both psychologically and in his material circumstance. Report an error in the passage at 44:11 Highlight the passage at 44:11

45:08 And that was just a clear example to me of how there's no free will but most definitely there is choice on And if you misbehave with those five precepts, you're just leaving yourself open for the world and circumstances to eventually catch up with you. And the Buddha talks about, and the suttas about, and Aristotle does as well, about one of the... Report an error in the passage at 45:08 Highlight the passage at 45:08

45:52 Best things you can do in your life is be a virtuous person. Karma aside, just for the fact that you don't have the guilty conscience and you're sort of watching over your shoulder for, oh, am I going to get done for what I did to that person so many years ago? And so we can't really control family circumstance. We can't really control business. Report an error in the passage at 45:52 Highlight the passage at 45:52

46:19 We can't even really control... Money to a degree. We can watch our money, but in the lay world, we're at the mercy of the share markets and the economic cycles. But what we can control is our behaviour. And by being virtuous, I'm not talking about going out and selling a house and moving to India and becoming Mother Teresa. Report an error in the passage at 46:19 Highlight the passage at 46:19

46:45 I'm really just talking about following the five precepts. And not harming other people or living beings in general. I think that if we can do this, then we can slightly just move that railway track of life in a better direction over time. Report an error in the passage at 46:45 Highlight the passage at 46:45

47:09 From what I've seen, good behaviour and then also trying to inflict our will on the world The good behaviour has results, but it takes a long time and it's a very slow movement. And then what I've seen is people who have engaged in bad behaviour, and certainly I have in my life, we all have, I'm not saying now, but obviously in the past as a younger person, I see that bad things happen quickly. Report an error in the passage at 47:09 Highlight the passage at 47:09

47:49 When you misbehave and you're outside that safety zone of the five precepts and you're hurting someone or killing a being or whatever, I've seen that bad things happen quickly, but good things happen slowly but surely. And if you can't impose your will on the world and change your circumstances... Report an error in the passage at 47:49 Highlight the passage at 47:49

48:18 at least behave well and almost take it out as an insurance policy where it's almost like in the medieval times where people in Europe just believed in Christianity in case it was true because they didn't know anything else and if they did die and it turns out that Peter was at the pearly gates, they'd sort of hedge their bets. Report an error in the passage at 48:18 Highlight the passage at 48:18

48:42 I see um Virtuous behaviour and morality as the same. I mean it may take you a while to get your head around Buddhism and really do some investigation and get your head around past lives and look for evidence and whatever and that could take you a whole lifetime. So in the meantime if you at least engage in virtuous behaviour you're sort of hedging your bets where You get to the end and go, oh yeah, Buddhism was right. Lucky I've been good for the last 20 years and avoided all that drama. Or you get to the end and go, oh, Buddhism was wrong. Report an error in the passage at 48:42 Highlight the passage at 48:42

49:22 But still I feel good about myself because I was a good person and I wasn't stealing or carrying on. And people get a feel for it. So I had a guy today come around to my house to fix the roof. Report an error in the passage at 49:22 Highlight the passage at 49:22

49:39 We agreed on a price or whatever and I paid him cash and I gave him the cash. He was a real tough guy, tradie on the roof, doing his thing, dealing with all sorts of people. Report an error in the passage at 49:39 Highlight the passage at 49:39

49:52 And I gave him the cash and said, there it is. And he looked at me and said, do I need to count it? And I said, well, what do you think? And he goes, no, I don't. And he put it in his pocket and that was it. And then out the gate he went and that was the end of it. Report an error in the passage at 49:52 Highlight the passage at 49:52

50:06 Yeah, after a while, if you are behaving well and you're not in a bad circumstance, then people sort of get a feel for it and life can move a little bit more smoothly. Report an error in the passage at 50:06 Highlight the passage at 50:06

50:21 Not much, because you've still got your past karma to contend with. But the one thing that you can do to deal with any potential bad karma that's waiting to fruit... Report an error in the passage at 50:21 Highlight the passage at 50:21

50:35 give up on trying to control the world or other people and just concentrate on the best behaviour that you can do, I suppose, to stay... Report an error in the passage at 50:35 Highlight the passage at 50:35

50:50 the, to stay out of trouble. And not really worry too much about whether... these philosophers that are talking about at the moment's topic on the podcasts Report an error in the passage at 50:50 Highlight the passage at 50:50

51:05 Free will is 50 % or 90%. I think we probably have about 5 % to 10 % control in our life, and I think that that control is mainly based around our behaviour and most of the other stuff we can't change. I mean, if you even think about it, you say, oh, OK, so... Report an error in the passage at 51:05 Highlight the passage at 51:05

51:36 I'm sick of being a middle-aged man living in Perth. That's it. I'm going to move to Russia. Well, you're not because you haven't got citizenship. You've probably got kids here. You can't speak the language. Oh, okay. I'm going to move to a tropical paradise. I'm going to move to Fiji. Well, you can't. You haven't got citizenship. You're not going to have a job over there. And really... Report an error in the passage at 51:36 Highlight the passage at 51:36

52:03 Especially as you go through middle life, this is what's occurred to me over the last 10 years, your options get less and less and less as you get older because you've got your trade or your degree and you're locked into that income, I suppose. Like to go and retrain, suddenly you're going to give up four years and then maybe you've got a mortgage and you've got kids to support or whatever else. So suddenly you're trapped and it's really only... Report an error in the passage at 52:03 Highlight the passage at 52:03

52:32 In your late teens, early 20s, where you have the latitude to make life decisions that will take you down radically different paths, but then in my experience, I was obviously like the rest of it in that position at that age, and I just ended up doing what I was born into. Born to middle class parents and one of them went to uni and one of them was in business and then I went to uni and then I was in business and this is sort of the conditioning that you're brought up with which prevents you from really doing anything too radical. Report an error in the passage at 52:32 Highlight the passage at 52:32

53:18 So if I think about it, one of the lawyers I'm dealing with at the moment, his son's just joined his dad's law firm. So there you go. Report an error in the passage at 53:18 Highlight the passage at 53:18

53:27 60 years of father-son lawyering. My now deceased barber from communist Hungary, his father was a hairdresser barber. He's a hairdresser barber. His uncle's a hairdresser barber and his brother's a hairdresser barber. And I remember saying to him, why wouldn't you just do something else? Like, isn't that a bit boring? What do you talk about at Christmas? He goes, oh, barbering. Report an error in the passage at 53:27 Highlight the passage at 53:27

53:58 That's an extreme example of the conditioning that we're up against. And I don't think it's worth fighting it, to be honest. It's too hard to go against that stream. And the best thing you can do, really, is just act morally, staying out of trouble, not causing murder and mayhem and stealing and the rest of it. Report an error in the passage at 53:58 Highlight the passage at 53:58

54:28 And investigating the spiritual life. But even that is conditioning. So last night I was having dinner with some people and there was a guy there who I met for the first time who was roughly about my age and he was asking about Buddhism and I didn't really go into it because he'd never heard anything about it before. Report an error in the passage at 54:28 Highlight the passage at 54:28

54:53 A Western guy, born in Perth. Nice guy. He said, oh, okay, well, how did you get into Buddhism? And I said, oh, I think it's because I was conditioned by the show when I was a child in the early 1980s, late 70s called Monkey Magic. So this is the one where he's got the monkey stick and they've got all these Buddhist stories around it. And he's like, oh, yeah, I remember that show. Report an error in the passage at 54:53 Highlight the passage at 54:53

55:23 Was that about Buddhism? I'm like, yeah, it was. He goes, oh, I never knew. And it's just a classic case of his conditioning and the environment that he was in. Even though we were same city, same age, different households, watching the same show, for him, because of the people he was with and family and whatever, that focus wasn't there and he didn't get it. Report an error in the passage at 55:23 Highlight the passage at 55:23

55:50 And then, you know, our life paths have probably been quite similar, but spiritually have diverged quite... quite widely. Report an error in the passage at 55:50 Highlight the passage at 55:50

56:00 And so two very similar human beings in the same circumstance exposed to the same stuff. And even then, like one, not through free will, I don't know what it is, chooses to follow Buddhism much later on, not as a five-year-old. And for the other guy, it just sort of skipped past him. So then I was contemplating, oh, actually, Drew, what else have you missed in your life that you didn't trigger because of... Report an error in the passage at 56:00 Highlight the passage at 56:00

56:28 Because of your conditioning. So if we can't control our life, if we can't even really control our likes and preferences, I happen to like that show. I like it so much I bought it for my son. I bought the box DVD set. And he likes it too. So you can probably guess I'm trying to condition him. I'm actually just trying to give him the gift of the dharma and just give him a bit of exposure and just little bits and little bits and little bits and then maybe he'll take it and maybe there's another human being that can be helped. Report an error in the passage at 56:28 Highlight the passage at 56:28

57:01 But we may not even have the free will to like our preferences, which is a little bit scary. I remember Adrian Romali, he tells his famous analogy of how he's a Norwegian. And his favourite dish is the guts of rotten fish. So apparently it's a delicacy over there. And, you know, so I'm an Australian and, you know, my preference would be for a steak on the barbie. But who's to say whether the rotten fish guts... Report an error in the passage at 57:01 Highlight the passage at 57:01

57:41 So he said that... control. And then if you consider that even further, it comes down to What would the Buddha describe life as? So he said that... He teaches the doctrine of non-self and that by definition means there's no free will so we've covered that. So what is it then that we're doing if it's non-self and we're completely conditioned and all we can do is adjust our behaviour to stay on the right side of the railway track and let that railway track slowly over time head Report an error in the passage at 57:41 Highlight the passage at 57:41

58:44 then what is it we're actually doing and it's occurred to me that we are a process So life is not an individual or an identity but in fact you're a process going through time because you're not programming your... Preferences or where you're going to be born or anything like that, your abilities. So really you're just a Report an error in the passage at 58:44 Highlight the passage at 58:44

59:22 process moving through time and so the only control you have of the process of yourself is, if you can, forcing yourself or naturally engaging in moral behaviour to set yourself up in slightly better circumstances. Over time, and I guess to get your head around the process, you can think of it like a river. Report an error in the passage at 59:22 Highlight the passage at 59:22

59:56 You know, the one-year-old Drew from the 1970s is very different from the seven-year-old Drew in the 1980s, who's very different from the 21-year-old. Report an error in the passage at 59:56 Highlight the passage at 59:56

1:00:12 And I'm even very different now, I think. Relatively speaking, in small percentages, because you can't change that much, from before I got into Buddhism, and it was inevitable that I was going to get into Buddhism when I think about it because of the show, the conditioning, the right environment in my home led me to it. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:12 Highlight the passage at 1:00:12

1:00:34 So even if you stacked up photos of yourself or myself from one years old, seven years old, 21, 30, 50, very... very different people with very different outlooks, very different responsibilities. And Report an error in the passage at 1:00:34 Highlight the passage at 1:00:34

1:00:53 If I think to myself, what connection do you have emotionally or memory wise to None. Report an error in the passage at 1:00:53 Highlight the passage at 1:00:53

1:01:09 None at all. None at all. seven-year-old living up on a property up in the hills in 1983 or whatever it was. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:09 Highlight the passage at 1:01:09

1:01:15 I was looking at Christmas time some photos at my parents' house at the Christmas lunch of my class photo and I looked at the kid, like I was struggling to pick who I was. That's how far apart the connection is and so there's obviously non-self because I haven't been able to carry that seven-year-old through to almost 50. Report an error in the passage at 1:01:15 Highlight the passage at 1:01:15

1:01:44 And I don't even recognise myself in photos and obviously physically quite different. So it really is, people really are a process. So when the Buddha's saying there's non-self, there's no eternal, fixed, permanent personality, of course he's 100 % correct. And you can look at these examples in your own life. I even look at my... Report an error in the passage at 1:01:44 Highlight the passage at 1:01:44

1:02:13 Small son now and remember him just learning how to talk at one and a half or whatever and now he's say five and again he's a radically different person so that baby toddler is gone forever and was never permanent and we have to Report an error in the passage at 1:02:13 Highlight the passage at 1:02:13

1:02:38 we're not permanent as well. We think that we're standing here and everything's revolving around us and we're unchanging, but that's very, very untrue. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:38 Highlight the passage at 1:02:38

1:02:48 But we can put effort into morality and once you've got that sorted out to the best of your ability, no one's perfect and we keep making mistakes, then that virtuousness and guilt free and Hopefully less complex in your life, then frees you up for more spiritual investigation and that has to be the name of the game. Report an error in the passage at 1:02:48 Highlight the passage at 1:02:48

1:03:17 That has to be the name of the game. I think that I've done everything I could in Western lay life. I haven't had any shortage of money to go here, go there, do this, buy that over the decades. I've done it all, had all the adventures, jumped out of aeroplanes, bungee jumping, scuba diving, trekking, done a lot. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:17 Highlight the passage at 1:03:17

1:03:37 Done it. And it's empty. And at the time, the person who was doing it, the younger Drew, enjoyed it to a degree. And now the older Drew says, why would I bother doing that? However, what I've found is that almost over 20 years now, investigating the dharma has given me a satisfaction. That has not faded away, like jumping out of airplanes or having motorbike accidents or all the silly stuff I've done, which was enjoyable at the time, except for the motorbike accident that hurt. Report an error in the passage at 1:03:37 Highlight the passage at 1:03:37

1:04:13 The spirituality for me over 20 years is really the only thing that's kept a deep interest in my life. It only develops when you're acting in the right way, you're attempting some meditation. I was talking before about the early formula I was using which got me sort of so far and I've changed recently and I'm feeling a bit better about it. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:13 Highlight the passage at 1:04:13

1:04:49 And once you're doing that, once you're acting morally, you're doing a decent bit of meditation, you're reading a bit of dharma, yeah, then Then it comes on. Then you feel like I've got some sort of input or control or will in my life. It's just a very small thing. It's the spirituality and those three aspects which I think are important. Dharma investigation, morality and a bit of good meditation which you can build up to. Report an error in the passage at 1:04:49 Highlight the passage at 1:04:49

1:05:22 And that's the thing that you have some... Small control over, and I believe can make a good difference in your life. Buying lotto tickets and hoping for the big business win, it's either going to happen or not, completely out of your control. But the spiritual investigation is something satisfying that you can have some input into. Report an error in the passage at 1:05:22 Highlight the passage at 1:05:22

1:05:51 And ultimately... We're all going to get old and die and also lose our facilities. So I'm watching my parents at the moment, they're quite elderly, and just watching the whole body fall apart and the mind as well. And it's made me think, oh, why would I be worried so much about accumulating money or status or this or that? Report an error in the passage at 1:05:51 Highlight the passage at 1:05:51

1:06:19 I really need as much as I can to... make some progress in the dharma because i could i could wake up in a year or tomorrow or 10 years time and boom i could have dementia right and then it's game over and anyone who thinks that it's not non-self and there is a permanent self all they need to do is go and visit a family member with dementia and then you realize that person's gone like the body's there But they're not connecting anymore. They've vacated. They don't remember me. They're this, this and this. And it's quite simply that they're coming to the end of their process and the body and the mind is getting ready to exit and move on to the next life, whatever that is. Report an error in the passage at 1:06:19 Highlight the passage at 1:06:19

1:07:05 Hopefully if they behave well, it's a good one. And yeah, the three divine messages they talk about in the suttas, one of them is an old... Report an error in the passage at 1:07:05 Highlight the passage at 1:07:05

1:07:23 infants. Yeah. Anyway, I'm watching that now in middle age. I'm sort of, you know, between the one young generation, one older generation. I'm watching the older generation prepare to exit. And it is a process. And there is no control because the members of my family who are in this age group and going through it. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:23 Highlight the passage at 1:07:23

1:07:42 They don't want to have dementia. They don't want to get old. They don't want the body to fall apart. But there's absolutely no choice for them. It's just happening. And I said to one of them, if you don't want to go to an old person's home, you've only got two choices. You've either got to have a heart attack or a stroke in your lounge room. Report an error in the passage at 1:07:42 Highlight the passage at 1:07:42

1:08:02 Because otherwise, soon enough, you won't be able to care for yourself and you're going to have to go into a care facility. And this person said to me... Well, I'll try, but I don't think I can. It's because there's no free will. Like you can't, yeah, you can't even end your life by willpower if you want to. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:02 Highlight the passage at 1:08:02

1:08:23 And it's your life, supposedly. So nevertheless, it's coming for all of us. And in the meantime, the best thing that we can do is gain happiness or some temporary satisfaction through spiritual inquiry. Which encompasses morality, meditation and dharma. So I'll leave it at that. That was my talk. And yeah, we've got about 20 minutes for any Q &A on anything we've talked about tonight or actually anything in Buddhism as well. Report an error in the passage at 1:08:23 Highlight the passage at 1:08:23

1:09:06 Thank you. Report an error in the passage at 1:09:06 Highlight the passage at 1:09:06