Ajahn Brahm leads us into the Rains Retreat with this scorcher of a talk. The Buddha's teaching of acceptance and letting go of states leads to the kind of deep happiness that cannot be found by shopping in the 'happiness industry' of this world. As Ajahn Chah famously said: "Joy at last -to know there is no happiness in the world!"
Ajahn Brahm talks about different sects of Buddhism, how it all came to be this way and what it means. Ultimately it's all the same cake, just different icing on top.
A hint of irreverence for all forms of superstition, lashings of humour in this talk, serve to stress that it's ONLY our personal accountability and actions that make a difference. Trinket jewellery, mindless chanting and holy water do not. Is there heaven and hell? What is the mind? Ajahn's stories of the 'Samurai Warrior and the Monk' and 'The Cloaked Emperor' provide the answers...
For those abused and wronged is happiness actually possible? Attachment to painful emotions, such as grief, anger, bitterness, the notion of a wounded self with a distinct identity: all these can become a perpetual prison...
Ajahn Nyanadhammo, abbot of Wat Pah Nanachat International Monastery, visits Perth. His talk had the audience spellbound as he explained Buddhist strategies that can take us out of the unsatisfactoriness of human existence to freedom. We also hear of the oldest monk in the world who was swallowed and then regurgitated by a giant python! And why red light districts have red lights...
Do we have a right to believe anything? Do some beliefs have priority over others? How do beliefs arise in the mind and how accurately do such 'intellectual fermentations' actually mesh with an Ultimate Reality?
Ajahn Brahm' talks about the control/freedom paradox. How much of our lives is *actually* controlled by us, how much by forces outside ourselves? How free are we? The relinquishment of our controlling impulse brings freedom, while the ego, with its judgement apparatus, leads to bondage and despair.
A penetrating look at how we react to criticism both when furnishing it on others and (at once more challenging) receiving it ourselves. Why are we often so hardened and totally stuck in our views and perceptions when softness of mind can yield much larger fruit?
![\"Superstitions\" - dhamma talk by Ajahn Brahm](http://img.youtube.com/vi/RggiVQ6F0fk/2.jpg "\\"Superstitions\\" - dhamma talk by Ajahn Brahm")
![\"Aspects of Freedom\" by Ajahn Nyanadhammo](http://img.youtube.com/vi/22HMb_rV-sc/2.jpg "\\"Aspects of Freedom\\" by Ajahn Nyanadhammo")
![Building the House of Peace\" by Ajahn Brahm](http://img.youtube.com/vi/sxK7iqG2XQA/2.jpg "Building the House of Peace\\" by Ajahn Brahm")
![\"Getting High on Vesak\" by Ajahn Brahm](http://img.youtube.com/vi/W6Cspg3VHb8/2.jpg "\\"Getting High on Vesak\\" by Ajahn Brahm")
