Lao Tzu and the beautiful sunset

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• The newspaper hiding the most beautiful view

  In brief: Walking a remote coast road in north-west Scotland on a perfect summer day — moors and mountains, cliffs, glistening green islands,…

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  As a student, again I was a Buddhist and I gravitated during the vacation periods to quiet places of the world. mostly to the Scotland to the North of Scotland to the moors where you could just wonder around without seeing anybody for a few days. On this one occasion I was on the Northwest coast of Scotland It was one of these beautiful summer days very often it is cold, wet and rainy but every so often in the summer time you get this perfect days and in the Northwest coast of Scotland in the summer time is paradise. you couldn't really conjure up a more beautiful scenery just so quiet, remote and unspoiled. just walking along the coast road with moors and mountains to one side beautiful cliffs, little islands dotted in the ocean as far as you could see bright green and glistening in the sun shine and all the sea birds were just reeling what I call euphoria at the time and seeing all this beautiful scenery and having all the time in the world to enjoy it because I had no place to really go plenty of time to walk just to my destination no mobile phones, no duties just walking, enjoying every moment of a beautiful part of our world. And of course I was totally silent. Until I saw a car parked up ahead of me on the road side. There was a car park there and I assumed, because I was stupid I assumed that someone who have been driving along that road and had also noticed the incredible beauty of this day in the summer time in this place and also just stopped to enjoy the scenery but when I got close I found the person wasn't looking at the scenery was reading a newspaper. This big newspaper was right in front covering up the beautiful seascape, mountains, grass, sunshine and all he could see was the news I thought what a wonderful metaphor that is of life Because what we read with our minds is all the words and the descriptions what do they have in newspapers? I know they have the cartoons that's what I always read first when I get a newspaper I really recommend the cartoons first of all. They also have; they have the wars, they have the fraud of this government or that government. they have terrorist attacks; they have all those other nasty news about life And that's what you see in the newspaper and I thought 'what a shame this is ' just on the other side of that newscript it only may be one or two millimeters you had the beauty of the world on such a gorgeous day! And at the time being quite a cheeky person; I haven't stopped being cheeky I thought of getting a pair of scissors out of my backpack I only need to cut a small hole in this newspaper so you can see what's on the other side I was very thin in those days I was an underfed poor student and this guy was a big heavy Scotsman I didn't fancy my chances if he got aggressive with me. so I just passed him by to read his newspaper, while I enjoyed the day

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• I could only see the names of the stars

  In brief: In the Cambridge Astronomical Society he learns the names of stars and constellations. In Thailand the night sky is so labelled in his…

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  when I was at University there was many societies I joined and one was the Astronomical Society always love stuff like that and I had learned the names of the stars and the constellations that you know whether it was a Galaxy or supernova or I knew all those words and when I went to Thailand and I saw the sky at night I couldn't see the Stars anymore all I could see were the names and everyone else was saying how beautiful it was and I couldn't see the beauty all I could see was like little labels next to every Star and it took me years you know I had to do this deliberately to forget the names to an act of it was an act of will so now I can look at the stars at night I don't know which one is which and I can see how beautiful they are

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• Walking up the hill instead of driving

  In brief: After nine years of only driving up to Bodhinyana, Ajahn Brahm gets out at the foot of the hill and walks; the familiar hillside becomes…

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  I noticed the experience of walking up the hill to Bodhinyana Monastery in Serpentine. Now, many of you have been down there, hopefully some of you will come down on Sunday for our Katina Ceremony. We bought that 25 years ago, 26, I think now, and for about nine years, I'd gone up, and down, the road to the monastery, always in a car, in some sort of vehicle. It was like one of those days we had a couple of days ago, just warm spring morning. I remember just coming back from some sort of appointment, and feeling just so positive, so energized, and having plenty of time, I told the driver, "Drop me off at the foot of the hill, I'm going to walk up today." Not for exercise so much, just for enjoying the morning, I had plenty of time. So, I started walking from the southwest highway, up Kingsbury Drive, to the gate of Bodhinyana Monastery. As I started walking I got very surprised. Actually, it was a shock. As I looked around me, I could not recognize where I was. That hillside looked totally different from what I remembered seeing looking through the window of a car. It was totally different. I was seeing things which I never knew were there. What I saw had more detail, had more depth of colour. It was just basically more beautiful. Of course that surprised me, and not being in any rush, not being in a hurry, I just stood still. And as I stood still, the whole hillside changed again. It was like evolving. As a monk you're not on any sort of psychotropic substances, you don't take alcohol, although, during our rains retreat, somebody offered the monks some chocolate cake, and, fortunately, before we ate it, one of the monks looked at the little writing on the cover, saying it had alcohol in it! Fortunately, we stopped in time, because sometimes you're not sure when you get some chocolate cake sometimes they put the alcohol in there just for the taste and then they cook it and all the alcohol goes, it doesn't matter. But we didn't know whether it was put in before or afterwards, and so we decided not to take it. We gave it to one of our visitors who was very happy to be a guinea pig [laughter], Like a food taster. And when he came back the next week he said "That was a lot of alcohol." [laughter] It hadn't evaporated, it was a very good job we were very careful. Otherwise, we may have gone to our monastery just after lunch in a rains retreat and seeing all the monks singing and dancing and goodness knows what else. [laughter] Which would not have done very much for our reputation, so you've got to be very careful. So we don't take such things. We are sort of sober, mindful, alert. So here I was having an experience, like sometimes you have in life, when things become really weird and they start changing in front of your eyes. But what had happened was, what I was seeing, it had more detail, more information. That hillside, you started to see little flowers, started to see rocks, and just the shape of the rocks and the lichen on the rocks. And, just look at the tree barks, and the whole tree bark was just amazing, beautiful. What was also strange was that the colours, the colours of everything you saw, started to grow more intense, more rich, more deep and more beautiful. The whole thing was exquisite. Of course, when a monk has experiences like that, we don't just enjoy, we sort-of contemplate afterwards what the heck was going on. And I decided to analyze it through science, and it became quite clear to me that, when you see things, sight is a chemical reaction on the back of your eye, on the retina. What happens with most people is that when they see something, they move on to another image almost immediately. So, the image on the back of your eye doesn't have time to properly form, and the colors don't come out. They're just maybe 10 percent of what's there, and the detail is all smeared, because the image does not have time. When I walked, I was going slower. The images on the back of my eye, the light had more time, so you could see a much more full picture with more detail, and the colours were deeper because they had more time to manifest. It was just a simple physiology of sight which was occurring. And, of course, when I stood absolutely still, only then did my eyes have all the time they needed to form a full picture. And for the colours, which were out there all the time, to be fully represented in the image on the back of my eye. And for my mind to have time to explore it fully, to appreciate it, and to taste it 100 percent.

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• He ran for the camera and missed the Himalayas

  In brief: On a monsoon trip near Kathmandu he hitch-rides a post truck toward the Tibetan border, climbs a small hill, and for once the clouds part…

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  we found out there was the post truck. The post truck would actually deliver letters from Kathmandu, the center, over to the the Tibetan border. And you know, you what is you know, it wasn't we supposed to do this, but the post driver to get a few extra uh rupees would allow a couple of um travelers to go in the back of the post bus, you know, and take them to the Tibetan border then come back again. So, it was a really nice little trip. And so, halfway up there, stopped for tea and then there was a little hill, not a big hill. Took about half an hour to get up. We climbed up or maybe 20 minutes. Climbed up the hill and as soon as you got to the top of the hill, the clouds parted. And you could see the the clear range of the Himalaya mountains from far left to the far right. It was an amazing sight. You know what I did? I ran down the hill to get my camera. I don't know why I did this. Totally stupid. And as you know, fast as I possibly could, I was much fitter and much thinner in those days. Ran down, got the camera out of my little bag, ran back up again and as soon as I got to the top of the the the hill, I could just see just the clouds came up and closed. Just maybe 10 seconds. And then there's a there's another uh couple of travelers there, Americans. They were just They were not smiling. They were just sitting down there just enjoying. And they said, "Where did you go?" And I missed everything and I never saw those Himalayas for the whole trip, 3 months. That was my one chance and I missed it because I wanted to capture it. And to me, there were some things in life you can never capture. And thank you, I learned my lesson there. It was worth it. Later on, you see the Himalayas. But this time, I missed them because I tried to capture them

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