Anyone who attended Ajahn Brahm鈥檚 talk at Dal on Monday could be forgiven for thinking they鈥檇 stumbled into a stand-up comedy performance rather than a lecture on finding happiness.
The British-born, Australia-based Buddhist monk, author and teacher treated the 100 or so people gathered in the Rowe Building鈥檚 Potter Auditorium to nearly two hours of his unconventional wit and wisdom.
The lecture, formally titled 鈥淭he Noble Eight-Fold Path to a Happy Life,鈥� was presented as part of 鈥� a three-year initiative launched last fall aimed at bolstering wellness resources and supports for faculty and staff.
Brahm鈥檚 talk centred mainly around stories from his own life, many of them delivered for maximum laughs. In between the many jokes, though, he delivered insights drawn from Buddhist teachings into the ways people can learn to live more happily.
He spoke about the usefulness of lowering your expectations, the need for more kindness and compassion, learning how to feel (rather than think) more, the perils of perfectionism, and the wisdom of admitting your own mistakes.
The power of mistakes
To illustrate the latter, Brahm told a story about the time he built a brick wall that is now part of the monastery he runs in western Australia. He had taken great care with each brick along the way, but when he stood back to take a look at the whole after completing it, he noticed two crooked bricks. Too expensive to fix, he had to accept the imperfection and move on.
Later, after telling that story at a construction conference, Brahm said someone came up to him and joked that there is a secret in the building industry: whenever a builder or a brick layer makes a mistake like that, they tell their clients it鈥檚 a feature and charge an extra $3,000.
聽鈥淚 thought, 鈥榯hat鈥檚 a beautiful end to that story because mistakes are just features. They make you lovable, they make you real, human.鈥� That鈥檚 the wisdom and virtue to notice that life is kind and good if you don鈥檛 try to be perfect.鈥�
As light-hearted as many of Brahm鈥檚 stories were, he also addressed some heavier topics such as euthanasia and abortion during a question-and-answer period following his lecture.
Brahm is the author of several books on mindfulness and meditation, including Bear Awareness: Questions and Answers on Taming Your Wild Mind, Don鈥檛 Worry, Be Grumpy, and Mindfulness, Bliss and Beyond: A Meditator鈥檚 Handbook.
Organized by Biology professor Arunika Gunawardena, Psychology and Neuroscience professor Dennis Phillips, and Human Resources鈥檚 Janice MacInnis, last week鈥檚 talk marked Brahm鈥檚 second time on campus. He delivered a series of four lectures here in 2014.
Words of wisdom
"When you demand of life what it can't give you, you are disappointed."
"Too many people in the world are going somewhere."
"If you're wrong, admit it."
"When you want some more, you can't enjoy what you have."