Giving up tea for three months

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• 'You ordained to forget'

  In brief: Visiting Ajahn Juin, a famous old Thai monk at the top-hat-shaped mountain monastery Phu Tok, Ajahn Brahm hears a Bangkok lady ask him,…

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  there is a monk called...Ajahn Juin. He was one of the old Thai monks who lived in this beautiful monastery "~Phu ~Top". It's like a top hat mountain and some of the Thai people know him and I - I mean he was a very famous monk at that time - I went to visit him and this lady came from Bangkok and asked this monk, "Did you become a monk,because you had a failed love affair?" He said, "No, of course not." She said, "Ha, that makes sense, you ordained to forget and you have forgotten by now."

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• Ajahn Chah's cure for sexual fantasies

  In brief: A very good monk, a friend from Ajahn Brahm's early years, couldn't stop having sexual fantasies and asked Ajahn Chah how to stop. 'Very…

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  When one of the people we know very well - he's a very, very good monk, but he couldn't stop having sexual fantasies, he was addicted to sexual fantasies. So he went to see the great Ajahn Chah and he said: ‘What can I do to stop these things? I want to be a monk, I want to meditate, how can I stop my addiction to sexual fantasies?’ ‘Very easy. All you need to do is the next time there's a public talk, you get up and give the talk and tell them exactly what you're thinking. All your sexual fantasies in detail. People are very interested, they'll probably listen all the while through’. [laughter] But of course, that's far too embarrassing, he never did it.

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• The sludge that started to taste nice

  In brief: Told that monks should eat plain food, he recalls that in his first year as a monk, as a practice, he stirred everything in his one daily…

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  My first year as a monk, for a practice, I put all the food together which was disgusting anyway, and I got the spoon and mixed it all up. I only had one meal a day. It was a sludge, it was a slop and if you saw it, you'd actually pour it out straight away. It wasn't even fit for pigs, let alone for monks. But the trouble was it was an interesting experiment which I did. Every food no matter what it was, the sweets, everything in one bowl and stirred it up so it was absolutely consistent. After a while, it actually started to taste nice.

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• Barefoot in the Korean snow

  In brief: After the Pope's visit to South Korea, Korean Buddhists organised a World Meditation Masters gathering, planning seven famous monks (only…

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  So when I was off in Korea, it was the World Meditation Masters Conference. It was started ... the reason behind this ... again, Buddhists, Christians, we are all the same. The Pope visited South Korea last year. And the Buddhist were... Urgh!!! The Pope visited South Korea We Buddhist must do something as well. What can we do? We don't have a Pope and the Dalai Lama can't go there because of the Chinese influence, trade and stuff like that; so that was a no go. So they decided to have ... it was based on, I don't know if you remember the old movie -The Seven Samurai... What's it call... the seven... whatever it was. Somehow rather seven is a lucky number especially in South Korea. That is a lucky number 7. And they decided to invite 7 famous meditation monks to have a debate. I don't know what they are expecting, I really thought when they first suggested it, sit all the seven monks together and see who could meditate the longest. (laughter) the first person to move, loses. Or even better--Psychic powers... come on Tibetan.. lift up in the air Ajahn Brahm .. come on. see how far you can go. The one who levitate the highest ... hah, hah... It's not like that being a senior monk you don't compete at all. That is just not part of Buddhism, competing with each other, we just enjoy each other's company. Anyway in the end they could only get four to go over there. So I was one of them. Many of those monks are just too old. They shouldn't really go there anyway. So one of the most important features of being a wise monk is you are supposed to be old. So I don't really qualify yet, for being a wise monk I am not old enough. As they said I am the baby monk which I was. So anyway what we did do there. They wanted us to go..... this was in the mountains of Korea and this in .. was it February yeah end of February. And it was deep winter. And the mountains were full of snow. We went right to the very top on the highest peaks in the region. It was actually a ski resort. They asked me if I could bodyboard I said "should be with a body like this!" I would not need a board. (laughter from the audience) But then no we can't do things like that. But what they wanted us to do is to do this walk and it was going to be called ... "The Saints walk" afterwards. That's marketing again. But anyway it was minus 15 degrees. When I left it was 42C plus here... 42 to minus 15. And it was on national T.V because it was a big event in Korea. Forcusing on Buddhism and all different Buddhist monks coming from overseas walking in the snow -15 degrees. And after awhile I found all the cameras they weren't looking at me or the other monks they were looking at my feet because I never had any socks on just my sandals and bare feet. And they thought, " Wow!" Ajahn Brahm won the seven meditation masters (laughs) I didn't win, I was messing around. But how can you walk -15 degrees in the thick snow with no socks on? Just so easy. Just be content! Be happy to feel cold and then there's no problem. It's when I don't want to be cold. This cold is going to be bad for me; I am going to get frostbite. My feet, my toes are going to all fall off, I better count them before I go to the hotel afterwards. What's going to happen to me? I am going to get gangrene! No, that's not the case because I always figured out a long time ago that cold is good for you! It's good for you. People who live in cold places live much longer. They have a much longer life. And the reason is... same reason why you put things in the refrigerator to extend their lives. (laughter) It's obvious, it's science. That's why my fingers were fine they were frozen, didn't feel a thing.

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