Rajapaksa served baked beans and said 'I'm a failure'

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• The blind elephants who felt a man

  In brief: At a leadership conference on Hayman Island with Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and others, Ajahn Brahm retells the seven blind men and the…

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  one gig I went to some years ago was to go to this resort island on Hayman Island now that is really a Top Resort and I was invited there all expenses paid flown over to the Gold Coast oh no the Great Barrier Reef you know it's a it's almost like a six-star hotel and that was quite a few years ago because it was a leadership conference and that that leadership conference there was Kevin Rudd was there and Julia Gillard and Swan and and the uh Anna Blythe from Queensland she was a premier there and the premier of Victoria was there and all these big shots were there not his big business people were there and it was really interesting and I was teaching them how to meditate and how to actually to uh to give them a bit of wisdom about how to live in harmony together that didn't really work anyway I tried actually I remember the story I did tell them which they thought was funny was you know the old I'm just going off in a tangent no Odell story The the elephant and the seven wives the elephant and the Seven Blind Men many of you know that story every blind man felt different part of the elephants and you know because of that that sort of they argued elephant is like a tree trunk elephant's like a fly whisk who felt the tail elephants like a plow felt the who felt the task and they all argued what an elephant was they were all right but they should have actually combined their knowledge and I decided to do a a an alternative of that one and that is of the the story The Great Buddhist story with the seven blind elephants and they always heard about a man what's a man we've heard about a man but what is a man and I heard about the you know seven Blind Men the only way you can find out is find another find an elephant set of seven Blind Men feel it and instead of archery and who's right combine your knowledge don't argue combine so the seven blind man figured out an elephant so big rock on four tree trunks with a fry Whisk on the back a water pot on the top on the middle of the water pot is a big snake two plows on either side of the snake and two big fans on either side of the water part of the years and that's not a bad description so when the elephants blind elephants heard about this they thought that's how we can find what a man is let's all find a man each feel the man come back and we combine our experience but unlike the first part of the story when the blind elephants all they all found a man each and when they came back to compare experiences they all agreed a man was flat that's the only way an elephant could feel anybody squashing it and I remember telling that to Kevin right and I think that's probably why uh Julia Gillard squashed him it's my fault sorry

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• When we had no hospital, people were so healthy

  In brief: One of Ajahn Chah's chief disciples (interviewed in a BBC documentary; Brahm briefly confuses him with another monk who first went to see…

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  And I remember this other guy. He was one of Ajahn Chah's chief disciples. And he said something which really shocked me, but you know, he was very honest. And he was actually one of the people interviewed in the BBC documentary about Ajahn Chah many years ago. He said, "When I was young, we didn't have any hospital and people were so healthy. Now we have a hospital, there's so many sick people." Now that was fascinating comment because I trusted this fellow. He was very honest. And he was putting a window sort of into the past and into the the present. He's very, very old man, but very trustworthy. He was one of these guys he first went to see Ajahn Chah. No, so that's another guy. I'm getting him mixed up. But this was a very, very honest fellow, a very good man, one of the chief disciples. So I really trust, you know, what he said there because I was there in the very early days. But it was saying that sometimes development, what we think they need, that is one of the problems with with aid, with compassion.

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• The emperor's ring: “This too will pass”

  In brief: A young emperor feasts in good times and sulks in bad, so neither works; his ministers give him a ring engraved “this too will pass.”…

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  it's a powerful story, about an emperor, a young man who took over the kingdom when he wasn't really mature enough to know how to lead. And so whenever things were going well in his kingdom he'd always have celebrations and parties. And because he was spending too much resources and too much time celebrating, and not actually doing the running of the kingdom, the good times never lasted all that long. And when the terrible times, the bad times, bad economy, unrest, social disorder, whenever there was trouble in his kingdom he'd get so upset and depressed he'd stay in his room and sulk and cry, which meant he wasn't working during the difficult times. And the ministers they realised that their leader, their king, their emperor, wasn't really working properly, and that's the reason why there were too many bad times and not enough prosperous times. You can't just tell these people what to do. Even these ministers in the Howard Government, they can't tell John Howard what to do. They've got to be sneaky, they've got to be wise, and so what these ministers did, instead of telling their emperor what to do, they just went to a goldsmith, asked for him to make a ring, the only difference between that ring and ordinary rings was what was engraved on the outside, which was the words "this too will pass". And they gave that ring with the engraved words "this too will pass" to the emperor, told him to wear it on all occasions, that's all, and the emperor did. Whenever there were bad times he would look upon the ring, "this too will pass", he knew by nature he didn't have to force those negative emotions and those bad times out of his kingdom, he knew they would pass naturally. And because he knew the bad times would pass, it gave him what's called hope, and when there's hope we can work, where it's hopeless we think the grief is going to last forever, the broken heart was always going to be there, you'll never find another partner ever in life. Or you'll never find that money again on the stock market, or whatever it is your chance to win the cup is gone forever. When you think it's forever that just makes life hopeless and you don't work. You don't make kamma anymore. But when actually you have hope, there's always something you can do. It gives you that motivation to work even in difficult times of your life. And actually the reason I'm saying this was because the photograph someone sent me was actually from the graduation ceremony of Virginia Tech university, recently, and I think you all know what happened at Virginia Tech in April, I was in London at that time. I think it was 39 young men and women were shot down by that murderer? You know, while they were on campus. And at the graduation ceremony one of the graduates, you know the funny hats they wear, they're called mortarboards, with the flat top, on the top of his mortarboard he'd actually painted the words "this too will pass", in memoriam of the pain that had happened in that university in the biggest serial killer murder in United States history. That's why he said "I don't know whether this guy's read your book or what", by he's obviously got the message. And it is a powerful message because it gives you hope, it allows you to let these things pass away. So "this too will pass". The other part of that story, which is very valuable to consider, is that that emperor wore that ring not just in difficult times but also in the happy times as well. Because it's in the prosperous, happy, good times that we should always remember, "this too will pass". Because he knew that the happy prosperous times were also fragile, he had a few celebrations but not many, because he knew he had to work hard to make sure those prosperous happy good times lasted as long as they possibly can. And they did. He became a very successful and well-loved emperor because the bad times were very short and the happy long times were longer than anybody could ever remember.

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• The number-two monk who had to become abbot

  In brief: Ajahn Brahm planned to stay number two behind Ajahn Jagaro — 'the car at the front of the convoy gets all the bugs on the windscreen' —…

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  I never wanted to be an abbot. I never wanted to be a boss monk. I had it all worked out when I was a young because there was another monk here, Ajahn Jagaro before and I was number two. It was perfect. I always say it's a car in front of the convoy that gets all the bugs on the windscreen. The one going behind is free of the bugs. So I always had the idea of being number two, tailgating another person. Who wants to be a leader anyway? Anyone who's a leader is just a dummy. Anyone who wants to be prime minister? That's why if you want to be a prime minister or a president, you must want your head examined. It's much better being number two or number three or four, whatever, because that way you don't have to be out front taking all the flak and making all the hard decisions and stuff. But anyway, it didn't work out that way. Because I was number two, tailgating, and then the head monk fell in love and left. I ended up being, basically that's what happened. So it ended up me having to take over.

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