Kindness; empowering authentic peace

Ven. Ajahn Brahmavamso - Pic by Ruwan Walpola

We feature below quotes from public talks held this month in Sri Lanka by Ven. Ajahn Brahm and excerpts of an interview with him. The insights given are relevant for the renewal of peacefulness within and between humans. The writing we feature today is an extension of the series published dedicating the month of May to the goal of lasting peace commemoration in Sri Lanka. 

By Surya Vishwa 

The Harmony Page has for the past four years run a campaign, publishing articles and interviews to promote the month of May as one that solely commemorates national peace and unity. We have ideated to usher one unified form of remembering 18 May – the day on which battlefield hostilities ended in the year 2009, in Sri Lanka’s North-East based ethnic conflict, concluding one of the longest contemporary civil wars. 

Having run three editions this month dedicated to the cause of upholding peace and empathy, last week we focused on healing the mind and body through Buddhist meditation. We wrote on how it can achieve equilibrium within the human body connected consciousness and featured some astonishing revelations of intense meditation curing serious diseases such as advanced cancer. These firsthand accounts were narrated by Ven. Ajahn Brahm, the globally respected Theravada Thai Forest Tradition trained Buddhist monk, meditation teacher and author. He is the head of the Bodhinaya monastery and meditation centre in Western Australia. Ven. Brahm was disclosing during his recent visit to Sri Lanka, what he witnessed teaching meditation to many Australians and citizens around the world who often use it as a route to surmount dis-eased states.

When a state of dis-ease, triggered by mind or body related aberrations hinder the calmness within the human vessel, we call it illness. When a similar phenomena takes place warping minds and hearts of many humans, preventing their potential of inter-connectedness and empathy, it is a dis-eased state that is called war – occurring within or between countries. The symptoms of this disease are associated with fatal conditions where humans vilify, ostracise or take the lives of others.

It is within this historical myopia that personalities such as the Buddha, Mahavira and Jesus (alongside scores of others – well known, little known and unknown appeared to act as opticians of light. 

Kindness then is the key theme today as emphasised through the excerpts of the interview the Harmony Page obtained with Ven. Ajahn Brahm and from segments of his public discourse in Colombo.

We begin by highlighting quotations from one of his talks to medical experts and business leaders. These events were held at the BMICH organised by the Ajahn Brahm Society together with the Centre for Meditation Research of the Medical Faculty, University of Colombo and the Business Forum.

We start off with Ven. Ajahn Brahm drawing upon his close affiliation with the natural world; being a monk of the forest tradition in Thailand and living in the thick often uninhabitable jungle terrains. 

Kindness heals

“We can learn a lot by closely observing nature. Having spent most of my life in many jungles of the world I have seen that the most damaged trees and foliage in the forest are the most beautiful. Look at a tree closely. See if you can find a single perfect tree – that is completely upright with its branches positioned in perfect symmetry. No. You will never find trees like that. They are crooked and gnarled and twisted. But are they ugly? No. There are no ugly trees. This is the same with humans. Can you find a single undamaged human in this world? No. Therefore when you focus on leadership at the business place please make kindness your priority. The fact is that the greatest kindness one can give oneself, whether in an office or elsewhere, is to be kind. Kindness inspires. Kindness heals. Office atmospheres have to work more with the concept of Muditha; taking joy in the success of others. How many of you can say you are not damaged? Will kindness not heal it?” 

“My teacher Ven. Ajahn Chah never identified himself with a nationality. He never described himself as a Thailand citizen. When asked where he was from he used to state “I am from my mother’s belly. This is how he connected with all humans on a scale of equality.” 

“I will share a small fable that I use in my talks to demonstrate the power of kindfulness. There is mindfulness. There is also kindfulness. There was a group of monks who fell into the hands of bandits. The bandits were about to kill all of them because the monks knew of the treasures they had hid in cave. Finally the bandits agreed to let off the rest of the monks on condition that one is sacrificed. The head monk had to choose between these monks; a monk who was old, and would die anyway, another who was sick and who also would pass away soon, one who was useless (do you know any useless monks in Sri Lanka?) and a monk who was an enemy of the chief monk – who always had things to find fault with in him. Well, who would you choose – who do you think the monk would have chosen? Would the monk have sacrificed himself?” (At this point few murmurs indicated that several in the audience of the business forum thought that the chief monk would sacrifice himself.

“No. The chief monk did not sacrifice himself or choose anyone else either. He merely informed the bandits that he could not sacrifice any of his monks, not even himself. The bandits were transformed by this act of kindness and not only set free all the monks but also became Buddhists.”

“Let me now share a humorous true anecdote concerning the extraordinary interest a set of prisoners in Australia showed in meditation when they were first told I would be there to teach it. There was full hall of prisoners. Then one of them queried; “Is it true that Buddhist meditation leads to levitation and where leaping over walls is possible?” I told them that it would require much hard work and commitment and yes there might be a possibility of levitation if stringent effort is made. When I turned up there next, it was to an empty hall with about three individuals. They had been interested in meditation because they all wanted to get over the prison walls!”

Q: How do you see mental illness?

A: I have conversed with an extraordinary professor of mental health from Singapore who seems to work miracles with his patients, often making the impossible possible. Fellow medical practitioners were aghast at the progress he made with those who sought his treatments – often those who were medically considered to be beyond achieving normalcy. Almost all of his patients ended up being clinically cleared as ‘normal.’

When I met him, he asserted that he has no mentally ill patients at his hospital. He declared that the inmates were normal people who sometimes have whatever it is that is defined as an abnormality through a medical term. This mindset was his secret through which he amplified the ‘normal.’ I learnt so much from the case studies he provided. He never considered any of those he treated to be patients. Just ordinary humans who had at times some issues. He never gave weight to the scary medical labels that we have created.

I will give you an example. There was a monk who joined my monastery who informed me that he was identified with Schizophrenia and that he would have to go for his treatments. In my interaction with him I was concerned only with a human being who sometimes gets that particular condition. If you saw and interacted with that monk you will never ever believe that he had that malfunction. He carries out all tasks as a monk to his optimum capacity and has travelled around the world. Sometimes, possibly rarely, he takes medication if needed. 

Q: Is it not considered normal for the medical industry of today to give emphasis to the disease?

A: Medical Science is too preoccupied with the five senses. They need to consider the 6th sense which is called Chiththa. I know from my experiences at running the monastic meditation centre in Australia how consistent meditation cleanses the entire anatomy and sweeps away even advanced cancerous conditions. My next book would probably be on these stories. For the body to transform to its original state of wellness it needs to be still. The breath through the medium of meditation facilitates this stillness. When everything is let go of, the breath is the only thing that remains. This fact should guide the meditative process. The breath is the last thing in the journey. 

The global medical industry should study the case studies of the complete cures that are facilitated through meditation. 

There are many terrible things that are being in the sphere of Western Medical Science that need to be stopped. For example the institutionising of those with Down Syndrome. How awful is this.

Q: How do you see the judgemental stance the modern world often takes on fellow humans?

A: This is a dangerous situation. When you judge a person that is what they become. In my work in prisons in Australia I have talked to persons who were perfectly good humans who in one instance did something bad. It does not mean this is their permanent state. This following story will prove it. There was this man who had committed rape many years ago when he was young and under the influence of drugs. He was serving his time in prison when I met him. He was a very nice person as I found out in my discussions with him. When he was let out of prison on a short reprieve, I asked him to assist as a cook for a retreat we were having in our meditation centre. He was there for nine days and made perfect pizza. He became very popular with those who attended the retreat and received praise for providing them such wonderful food. They did not know anything about him. After he left back to prison many inquired where he was –and I told them that he had gone back to serve his prison sentence. I was asked what crime he had committed. I said rape. There was such a panic when I said that. Most of those who had come for the retreat were females! I replied that he cannot be judged by something he did so many years ago as a young person and they understood this.

Q: Have you worked with Christian schools in Australia on teaching meditation?

A: Yes. The teacher who initiated it called it Calm Time. Then one of the parents discovered that the teacher concerned used to come to my meditation centre. ‘This is Buddhist meditation.’ ‘This teacher goes to Ajahn Brahm’s centre to meditate,’ this parent told the school authorities. Of course then it looked as if it would be stopped but the impact on the students Calm Time was having was so profound that the headmaster supported it and the education department permitted it. It became a popular tool for students to solve conflicts within the classroom. ‘Let us have calm time,’ one or more of them would quip and the whole class would go into meditation. At an inter-religious conference I co-presented some of these aspects with a Benedictine monk. 

Q: Could you share the very first turning point that influenced you towards Buddhism?

A: Well, when I was in school I used to win prizes that provided support to buy books. It was called the school prize. I used to find the usual books connected to mathematics and science that were commonly found quite boring because I used to read them all the time. One day I discovered a small annex on the top floor of a building which had the strangest of books. I had never seen such publications before. These were books on Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam that I had never even heard of. I walked out of that store with a book on Buddhism written by a European. That was my first steering towards the path I chose.