The millionaire who retired to Guadalcanal

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• The Mexican fisherman

  In brief: An American business professor on holiday meets a Mexican fisherman unloading his morning catch: enough to feed his family, then lunch, a…

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  it's a story of the old Mexican fisherman you know there was American who went on vacation to the Caribbean coast and when he was uh just walking around by the shore he saw a fishing boat come in to unload its morning catch and his Mexican fisherman unloaded the catch and this American came up to have a conversation with him said what are you doing seor he told the American I've been out fishing all morning I've got enough fish here to sell to feed my family so now I'm going to go home and have a nice lunch after lunch I'm going to have a sleep a cesta it's good for your health you don't get stressed out if you have a siesta can you have a siesta or you're too busy I'm going to have a cester and after cester I'll be home when my kids come back from school they play with them help them with their homework and in the evening I'm going to have dinner with my wife and maybe you know go to the the canteen or the pub in Mexico having a a couple of tequilas not much and play the guitar with my friends now life is good and that's when the American said sir I am a professor of business studies in a business school in the United States I think I can help you don't be so lazy you are not exploiting this wonderful resource of a fishing boat yeah go home and have lunch but go out in the afternoon you'll catch twice as much fish with the extra profit from twice as much fish you'll be able to buy a much bigger boat with a crew that way you'll soon be able to catch about four or six times as many fish with that extra profit you'll be able to buy a second boat in about four or five years you'll probably have a whole Fleet of boats and then with a whole Fleet of boats you can even make your own caner so you can process the fish it's Downstream processing to make increase your profits and then with that business you can actually uh move the center of your business to Mexico City or even better to LA and then because you own the whole business you can float it on the stock market know sell shares because you're the CEO you can award yourself these amazing obscene salaries and give yourself stock options which means if the stock goes up you can buy if it doesn't you don't need to you can make a millionaire many times over in about 10 years now I'm a professor of business studies that's how it's done and the Mexican fisherman listened very respectfully until the end of this presentation the Mexican fisherman said but Senor what will I do with all those millions of dollars and Professor thought for a few moments he hadn't thought the business plan out that far so he had to think that's all people think about making the few Millions but then what and the professor said well yeah with all that Millions few Millions you know you can retire you know you can retire to you know a nice fishing Village like this buy yourself a small boat just to go out in the morning for fun you'll be able to have lunch with your your wife every day you'll be able to take a siesta afterwards and you always be home to play with your children when they come back from school and you'll be able to go out in the evening with no worries at all Senor I do that already

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• The dreams that were right — until they weren't

  In brief: A fellow monk told Ajahn Brahm he had twice dreamed truly: a recurring dream of his sister drowning that let him save her at 16 or 17, and…

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  he'd always have this recurring dream he told me that his younger sister would fall into the swimming pool drown and die and he said one day he was just as a young 16 or 17 year old he was just sitting around the pool just doing nothing and then the dream which he had uh seen so often started to unfold it was exactly as he dreamed but because he remembered the dream and knew what was going to happen next he actually intervened and saved his sister's life he said it was weird but if he hadn't had that dream his sister would be dead and that gave him such confidence in dreams especially in those Vivid types of dreams that he believed in them except for once when he said he was maybe about 2122 and he was in New Zealand remember this was 30 40 years ago uh shows how old I am but this was a time when young people were really into smoking marijuana and he was in a house over in New Zealand with a few other young people you know sort of taking those recreational drugs and he had a dream he said many times that the New Zealand police came into the house and arrested everybody and he said he was kicking himself because he never took preventative action and it happened and he got deported and so he had two dreams he said which actually turned out to be true and he said the third dream which he had and this was the one he kept on telling me this was in 1974 when I became a monk and it was just the towards the end of the Vietnam War and the Viet Kon had taken over Vietnam patet La had taken over LA and the Karu had taken over Cambodia and our monasteries were very very close know to the border between Cambodia and L right in that sort of West northwest corner of Thailand and I remember looking at a map once and the distance from my Monastery in Thailand to Bangkok was twice as distance as it was to Hanoi we're much closer to Hanoi let alone the other sort of communist places and there was an evacuation plan which we had to register for our embassies because most western diplomats at the time subscribed to what was called the Domino Theory they thought once Vietnam LA and Cambodia fell tider would be next especially the Northeast where we were very close and so he thought he had this dream of the Communist soldiers invading that part of Thailand him running away across a pfield and got him shot in the back of the head he was so convinced of that dream he said that's how I'm going to die I know I'm going to die the Communists are going to invade and I'm going to be caught and killed cuz two out of two times he got it right that never ever happened you know he disrobed fell in love got married and one year after he got married he got killed in a head- on car crash in California so it never worked out

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• The 2012 doomsday bet

  In brief: When people in Indonesia worry about the world ending in 2012, Ajahn Brahm offers to bet his monastery against their house; nobody takes…

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  At the retreat people were telling me about 2012 when the world is going to end. The tectonic plates are gonna shift, there's gonna be tsunamis, there's gonna be earthquakes. So forget about having a mortgage, you don't have to pay it off in another two years. Of course it's not gonna end in two years' time or whatever it is. You don't think about that. In fact I saw in Indonesia, people were talking about it even in Indonesia, in the islands over there. I said, "Look, I volunteer my monastery and the whole Buddhist Society of Western Australia with all its assets, against your house. I'll bet if the world ends you get our monastery and the Buddhist Society of Western Australia's assets. If it doesn't end we get your house." No one took me up on it. Of course you don't, that's not much of a deal.

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• The storm and the green leaves

  In brief: A forest monk in northern Thailand survives a night of falling trees in his flimsy hut; next morning he sees that the storm tore down…

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  The answer which, I got for that, I got from a monk, an old monk who's living in the jungle, who was one of these people who was still enough to listen to the teachings from the nature, from around us Brilliant teachings. And I tell this every time I have to do a funeral service for someone who is young. I tell this, and many people get it, they understand "Ahh, I understand now". And it was, this monk was in a very simple hut, in the north of Thailand, and when I talk about simple, I really mean simple, just made out of bamboo and thatch for the roof, and thatch for the walls as well: really simple to put up, very natural, very easy. And you know, he'd go on alms round every morning to the local village, live a very very frugal, peaceful life, but very very happy. But living in the jungle, there are such things as storms, and if a storm comes when you're in the middle of the forest, and you haven't got much protection, it is very dangerous. Trees come down, or even big branches! And imagine, just visualize a bamboo and thatch hut, if a decent size branch hits that roof, it just goes straight through. Not like metal roofs, or these, uhh, roofs which are engineered so that almost like an Elephant could fall on this roof and it wouldn't go through. Otherwise we wouldn’t get planing permission and building permission, not that an elephant would actually fall on this roof, but you never know (Laughs) So, so over engineered, for safety. But anyway, so, it was such a flimsy dwelling, that one branch could go through and it would... if you didn't actually get crushed you'd get injured, break a leg, break an arm, and remember this is simple living, you don't have mobile phones, you don't... you know even if you did have one, there would be no telecommunications tower there, there's no one you can call, no one can help you if you break a leg, that's probably worse than dying instantly you just die slowly. So it was very dangerous! So he was up all night, hearing the... THUUUDD! BANG! (Hits Table) WHA... oops, WHACK actually that hurt (Laughs) That didn't work as I expected it to. I always say that when you give a public talk, do some special effects (Laughs) Cause you know what happens when people talk, talk, talk, you know, they fall asleep they get bored. It is something like, special like raise your voice, or go BANG! or WOFF! then actually, you know, people actually enjoy it in weird ways. Anyway, so BANG!, WHACK! All these trees where THUDDING next to him. And so, you know, it was very difficult to meditate And he was up all night, but, you know, he survived If he didn't survive he wouldn’t be able to tell me the tale. He survived the night. And in the morning He walked outside, to see the damage; And yeah, several big trees Just missed his hut, he was lucky to be alive! But it wasn't the trees which grabbed his attention, what he saw was the leaves on the forest floor. Most of the leaves which had been torn off the trees and laid dead on the forest floor, where the old, brown leaves. But amongst those old brown leaves there where several yellow leaves, even a few green leaves. And some of those green leaves where so freshly green, they could have only been alive for a few hours, and now they laid dead on the forest floor. Before he completed his insight, his understanding, he checked to see what leaves remained alive on the twigs and branches of those trees; And of course! Most of the leaves remaining alive on the forest trees, where the green leaves! But, even though a few green leaves had been torn off and laid dead on the ground, there where still a few curly old brown leaves, still clinging on, Even though the young green leaves where torn off and laid dead. You understand what we mean, even though young children die, there are still some of these old people who keep coming to our center every Friday for years and years and years still clinging on (Laughs). You know the old Grandma and Grandpa, why aren't they dead yet? (Laughs) They're all still clinging on when these young people die. And he realised that there was nothing wrong. That's what they where saying there: "there's something wrong, It can't be right, why are old people still alive and young people die? It can't be right". Then he saw it was right: It was the nature of life and death it's the nature of a storm which goes through a forest, to mostly take the old leaves, but it always leaves a few old leaves. And it always takes a few young green leaves as well. Nothing is wrong, welcome to life.

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