those which weren't actually video streamed live. Our president told me, couple of weeks

ago, that we think maybe about 300 people - never really count people here - listen

to these talks live, but about 17 000 listen to it on the Internet. It's a huge number.

17000. And places as far away as Iceland. So to the group in Iceland, good evening to

you all.

This evening's talk is going to be on the Buddhist attitude towards sensuality. Now,

we live in a sensual world, and sometimes some religions, they have a very eccentric

response to sensuality which is around them. We see that with people enforcing their womenfolk

to wear burkas, or even, say, in the Amish community, asking people to wear loose fitting,

unsensual clothes. And you look at the monks and nuns in front of you, and this is our

idea of a burka, or is it? What is it, and what is the Buddhist attitude towards sensuality

in this world?

Certainly that that's an important question, because some people's ideas about the problems

of sensuality, and the joys of sensuality have a huge impact on the way that they live

their lives, and the way they act upon other people. So, this is why I wanted to talk about

this and Buddhism. Certainly, you see from the people here that we don't ask people to

come and wear non-sensual clothes. Sometimes there are some of you here who think, oh,

we have some very young monks here. We don't want to lose those monks. And it has happened

in the past, that maybe a skimpily clad young girl comes in, and they're ushered outside.

Please don't do that. Simply because that's going to offend somebody, and you should have

more confidence in your monks. And you wouldn't do that if a hunky man came in here when Sister

Ajahn Vayama was giving a talk. [Laughs].

So that point is, here, you see in Buddhism, we don't have anything like veils, and there's

a good reason for this. Certainly, that sensuality is there and sensuality can cause problems

in the world. Now, we do have problems with pedophiles. We do have problems with sexual

predators. We do have problems with, even, rapists. We do have problems with other addictions,

not just sexual addictions, such as overeating or people who are addicted to pornography,

or people who eat too much, or gamble too much. There are many addictions in this world

which are concerning sensuality. There is a problem there, but sometimes there's a problem

if we try and suppress it just too vigorously, because that impinges upon our freedoms and

our wishes to enjoy the world in which we are born into. And so, what is the Buddhist

attitude toward these problems, so that we can live and enjoy our life, at the same time

try and avoid, as best as we can, some of the extremes of sensuality? I think just the

way I've defined this talk tonight, I think you've already got the clue that the Buddha

was always talking about a middle way, not to go to extremes. And it's the extreme parts

of this which have caused the problem.

But, with sensuality, we can actually understand, just when we watch our mind, especially, that

it's not so much what's out there, but the way we respond to what's out there, which

is the biggest problem in life. And one of the key stories which I grew up with, was

coming from my own teacher Ajahn Chah, who being a monk, obviously you have a different

value system when it comes to sensuality. Now, monks and nuns are celibate, and to live

a celibate life you-know in the world, obviously the monks and the nuns cannot really escape

from the sensual objects out there, whether it's food, or whether it's sex, or whether

it's movies or whatever. So, you actually had you deal with this, and one of Ajahn Chah's

stories was that when he was a young, lusty novice, you-know, 18, 19 years of age, with

all the hormones running through him, he wanted to become a monk, but, obviously, he saw young

Thai girls, and he would have lust towards them. And so for three months, during a period

of what we call Rains Retreat, the time when I don't come here, Sister Vayama doesn't come

here. Those of you who have been coming here for a long time know for three months we always

go back into our monasteries. He was staying in a town monastery, so for three months,

he decided he would not look at any girl at all. He would keep his eyes down, and not

even look at anybody, thinking that that type of restraint would overcome his lust. So for

three months, he refused to even look at a girl. And he said what happened, for those

three months he was fine, but after his resolution was completed, the first girl he looked at

he went crazy with lust.[Laughter].

And this is one of the problems, that just not looking, not facing up to the problem

is actually not overcoming it. Actually, it makes it much worse. And that's why that asking

people to cover up, so the monks or the nuns don't see anybody. They want you to cover

up. It doesn't really help the situation, because as soon as the covers are taken off,

people actually go crazy. It's actually almost suppressing something. If you suppress it

and don't understand it, usually there's a bigger explosion later on. The simile which

I've often given, if anyone here is meditating, if you feel like coughing, please cough straight

away, because if you don't cough straight away, and you suppress it, when you do cough

it's like a volcano going off, and you just disturb everybody. [Laughter].

Sometimes, that type of suppression is typical of some of the ways in which we deal with

the problems in our world.

And so that, since we live in such a world, we have to instead of trying to cover up the

triggers with burkas, or with veils, or with people dressing up in sort-of loose fitting

clothing, and not accentuating you-know your bodies, and not wearing scents and make-up

and goodness knows what else. That won't solve the problem. The problem has to be solved

actually in one's relationship with the sensory world. And that certainly is the Buddhist

attitude. It's again, not just with sexuality, it's with food. Sometimes people come to our

monasteries, both the Gidgegannup and to Bodhinyana monasteries at Serpentine, and think, "My

goodness! Look at all the delicious food that you monks eat!" We had complaints in the first

years when I was a monk because sometimes we had these Thai ladies married to Australians,

and they'd come and bring food to the two monks who were there. This was before Sister

Vayama came. And sometimes the Australian men, the husbands, would complain. They'd

say, "My wife never cooks anything like that for me! This is unfair!" And the Thai women

would say, "You should become a monk. Then I'll cook for you." [Laughter]. We got the

most delicious food. And so sometimes people would complain to the monks, "You're supposed

to be monks. Why are you eating such delicious food? You should just eat ordinary food, just

like bread and water. That's probably the best for you. Then we'd respect you even more."

But sometimes I tried that. 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. It was a weird thing but the way that sensuality

works. After a while no matter what it is, you start to like it. It starts to become

attractive, delicious and tasty. So what it made very clear to me - it was not the food

which was the problem. No matter what food you have there, after a while it becomes delicious

and you crave it. It doesn't matter what, if it's a man or a male monk what women you

see, after a while, even if they are in burkas, after a while even the burkas start to appear

sort-of attractive. Whatever it is, so the attraction is not on the object out there.

You can like anything after a while. So it's quite clear that the reaction to the dangers

of sensuality should never be concerned with the triggers of sensuality. Even in Singapore,

they are just going to be opening up a couple of casinos. And obviously, that the sensuality,

it is sensuality, of gambling, the thrill of it, the excitement of it is also problematical

but we don't solve that problem by banning all the casinos because what happens when

you ban the casinos then you have illegal casinos. It's not really the thing outside

which is the problem. It's the way we react to them. It's our attitude towards these things

and so, it's actually quite glad that I had... because I have a group in Singapore and they

showed me some of these documents and they asked me my opinions about those casinos in

Singapore. And I told them, and I'm very glad that the Singapore government was actually

following, it didn't really follow advice really, I understood what they were going

to do anyway, was actually not to stop these things but actually to contain the worst parts

of gambling by having legislation in place which can stop the addictive gamblers. And

for other people, who are addictive, to show some restraint. And that is actually what

is going to be happening in Singapore. So that loan sharks, the money lenders, can't

be on the casinos exploiting people's addictions. Now if a person is going to that casino too

often their family or even themselves can voluntarily ask themselves to be banned if

it's going to be causing financial trouble or social trouble, they can be put on the

blacklist. Sometimes, they volunteer themselves. It's a way of actually dealing with worst

parts of gambling because other than that... I remember as a kid that I would sort of have

a bet on. In England, it was called the Derby or the Grand National, two races, horse races,

you would bet on every year and it was only like two shillings or whatever. It was for

fun and you never expected to win anything. If you did you just shared it with your friends.

And that to me never seem to be like a problem but of course, sometimes, the addictive gambling

is a problem. In the same way that sensuality which ordinary human beings have in the world.

I'm not talking about monks now. I'm talking about lay communities. Now, having a partner

in life, having relationships, having sex, the ordinary type of stuff is usually not

problematical except if it gets too far or get addicted or get too far under the power

of one's sensuality. And this is actually where we have to have ways of not dealing

so much with a trigger out there because you can't really control that trigger out there

but dealing with our attitudes towards these things.

And so, as Buddhists, sometimes people will think we're so tolerant. You know in Buddhist

countries like Thailand which have a lot of prostitutes and in Singapore like gambling

or have like people wearing skimpy clothes or whatever. And anything goes sometimes,

they said in Buddhism. I think that was Tina Turner when she became a Buddhist. Why become

a Buddhist? I think she was quoted as saying because you can do anything you like in Buddhism.

That's not quite true. I hope I didn't misquote her but, it's the triggers outside we are

not so concerned with. So, the Buddhist response is actually just try to work to one's attitude

towards these things in life. And in order to work on those attitudes, we have something

we call mindfulness. We are aware of how these things affect us.

And we also understand with some wisdom about the dangers in these things. So, like gambling,

it can be fun but there's obviously a danger there. And we use our awareness, our mindfulness

to actually know how far we can go, what the danger is. The same with the relationships

and sex, of sensuality, of lust, we know what the advantage are. We know what the dangers

are of it. And also, whatever else whether it's eating, whether it's watching movies,

whether it's watching the Internet or whatever, we know the dangers which are there. And this

is not stopping the things out there. It's actually stopping the way we relate to them

when it gets too far. And obviously, like sexuality, we know there's dangers there.

When we're talking about dangers, there was never ever in Buddhism, that's one of the

reasons why I was inspired to Buddhism, there is never anything like evil or sin or you're

bad boy because you had sex with a girl or something. That badness and evil, that ultimate

bad thing was never there, instead it was always this almost like a precursor of utilitarianism

because Buddha would say the basic ethics and I repeat this many, many times. It's not

just anything goes in Buddhism but it's - what you are going to do or say or even think is

it going to be harmful to others or harmful to yourself. If it is, it's called not bad,

not evil - unskillful. It's a great word, unskillful, because it doesn't have any like

moral judgment as if it comes from some absolute. This is bad and this is good. Because if it

says this is bad this is good and you're told it by someone else, you don't have to think

it out for yourself, you believe in. Because of those blind beliefs, we get into terrible

troubles in this world. We don't even think it out for ourselves and so, because we believe

that blowing ourselves up is going to send us to heaven, we do such stupid things. Or

because we believe that say sex is bad, we get these puritans. But what we actually say

is what is skillful in these circumstances? By skillful, I mean, is it going to be conducive

to the goal we're searching for? Is it really going to be help? Is it going to be purposeful?

What the consequence are going to be for ourselves and other people? That's what mindfulness

has behind it. Just like what you think what's the consequences. Where is this going to lead?

And so, if we say with sensuality, there always has to be some restraint. Whether a lay person

or a monk, we have restraints so we are not going to have any partners or any sex. That's

our restraint because we have a goal of developing very deep meditation. We might come up with

that later on but as lay person in this world, your restraint has to be, I would hope, just