Buddhism brainwash… Hahaha… Not really, this is a good one.

Yesterday, I went to a seminar with Debby, she asked me to accompany her. The seminar invited a Buddhism monk named Ajahn Brahm. That was all OK with me, because she went to church with me several times, so have no big deals if I accompanied her. Ajahn Brahm , seemed like a very famous monk in Buddhism, that night, people idol him, except me of course, I didn’t even know him. From the guide book, he was born in London in 1951 –yeah a western monk-- and became a monk on his 23rd age. He graduated from Physics Theory in Cambridge University and became a teacher. It didn’t last long; then, he started becoming a monk. He was the one who wrote a book titled “Membuka Hati”, some people said it was a good book, but I haven’t read it. He already wrote another 2 books, but I don’t know what the titles are.

In this seminar, he told us how to be happy in out life. He gave reasonable examples by stories and jokes how to make our own life better. Since he was graduated from Cambridge, indeed, he seemed such a smart person, his words told me that, but I’m not too sure, anyway, I’ve never met him before. His telling didn’t only suit for Buddhism, but I think, Christian also has similar idea too. His words taught us about thankful and acceptance to what we have.

His first story was about “chasing happiness”, which story was from his own life. Ones, he was told how to get his success. His parents said if he got a very good score in school, then he could go to pass test for elementary level, and he would be happy, and he did so. After that, he still not happy because he had to get another test, then, he asked his parents again, then his parents told him to pass next level through high school, and he also did so and got a good mark. After that he wasn’t too happy either because he had to take another test in high school. And his parents told another thing, if he wanted to be happy and success, than he had to get to Cambridge, and he did that also, and what now… Now he had to work and still not happy.

Sometimes we do chasing our own happiness, but once we got that, we still don’t happy, because we will be seeking for another goal, and another, and another, and so on…. So, we will never reach our “happiness”, because we only focus on the “setting goal to get happiness” not the “happiness” it self. Because that’s what we do, we try to get much money; we always think that we could be happy with the money, no… we afraid the robber will take our money. So we get security guard, do we happy now? No… we afraid the security guard will take our money instead of the robbers.

Another story was about two women who were sisters need consultation about their problems in life. The older one said that he was going to divorce with her husband; she told that they were not matched anymore. Than Ajahn Brahm said, “Ok, what is your sister’s problem”. Than the other sister said that he depressed because she was single. “Then, why don’t you just swap? You need a husband and your elder sister doesn’t need him anymore, it’s so simple and logic.”

Some people laughed to the story, but one point we could take, it told us about sufferings. We have suffered from many suffering these days, one comes after another. When we were in university, we had college suffering, because we was suffer from assignment, then the college suffering went away because we were graduated from university. But the suffering was still there and become work unemployed suffering. We searched for jobs because we were unemployed, people need money. Then we got the job we seek. Employment suffering, the job was too hard for us, we had no time for our own life, everyday was overtime and that made us single, had no social living, another suffering, single suffering. Next, we worked really hard and while did that we finally could find a woman to share our life with. Ok… the single suffering turned into marriage suffering… she asked too much money, she even born massive numbers of children, this is the parents suffering, and still, our employed suffering was still there too. Ok… this was our worst of all… compilation of all sufferings. They all the same, same taste with different flavors.

People always forget, if they achieve happiness through changing the world, gather money, build big house, find a beautiful wife, get good score on class, have plenty of degree, buy new shoes, cars, and other things. Because when we need something, it leads to another thing, it will always be like that. What we need to do is stop asking for more, and be grateful with what we already have. Be thankful that we have a house; because that’s enough, thankful with our wife; she’s beautiful enough for me, thankful with our husband; he is rich enough for me, our car, our children, and our life; they are enough to make us still alive. It’s not about how the world makes us happy; it’s all about how we can be happy with our world.

Being thankful and grateful is just what my faith --which is Catholic-- asks me to do. I never regret went to the seminar, he just gave me a very nice reminder about what I should do. The monk said a lot about love, care, and peace, just like what I always hear in the church. Maybe it is just like my father said, Buddhist is much more like Catholic, they teach us love, care, and peace without any condition. Ok, another bonus I got from yesterday seminar, I saw some of xiao jie hanging around… Ha….ha….ha… me is just always me.

Ok those are all I want to tell, even I can’t bring this as interesting as Ajahn Brahm did, but at least I tried. But one thing to remember, “Happiness lies in you, don’t change the world for it, change yourself to get it”.