and I'm honored to introduce Ajahn Brahm, my fellow jolly

good fellow.

I'm a huge fan of Ajahn Brahm.

In the part of the world I came from,

which is Southeast Asia, and also in Australia,

Ajahn Brahm is a big deal.

He's like a celebrity.

He's like a movie star.

He has to wear shades when he goes to the mall.

He is a widely admired master, teacher of dharma,

and Buddhism, and meditation.

And he's known for his wisdom, his intelligence,

and great humor, and for telling great stories.

He's also very naughty.

Let me give you an example of naughty.

AJAHN BRAHM: Hey.

No.

MING: Yes, you.

The last time we were together, I

brought my father to see Ajahn Brahm.

And I wanted a book autographed for my father.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yes, yes, yes.

MING: And then I was busy.

So I give it to a friend, and say,

can you get Ajahn Brahm to autograph for Ming's father.

And then he put it to you.

And you wrote, "To Ming's father."

So which is why today, I had to say,

can you autograph to my wife, Cindy, Cindy.

Otherwise, he was going to write "To Ming's wife."

AJAHN BRAHM: "To my wife."

MING: Yeah. "To my wife," yeah.

He's also, among other things, known

for his leading role in advocating

for the rights of Buddhist nuns for full ordination.

Yay.

[APPLAUSE]

MING: And for that, he got expelled from his order.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yay.

[LAUGHTER]

MING: I know.

The last time we were talking about this,

we were in the audience and onstage, somebody

was talking about this.

And we high-fived each other.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yes, yeah, yeah.

MING: Remember?

We were like, let's do a high-five again.

High-five.

Yeah.

He said the best thing about being expelled from his order

is he can only be expelled once.

Ajahn Brahm is also the co-founder of Bodhinyana,

the first dedicated Buddhist monastery

in the Southern hemisphere, hemisphere, hemisphere.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yeah.

MING: Yes.

He's the coolest monk in at least the Southern hemisphere,

hemisphere, hemisphere.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yes.

It's very cold in Australia.

MING: Yes.

Which is today also the largest community

of Buddhist monks in Australia.

He is the author of multiple books.

And in 2004, he was awarded the John Curtain Medal

for Leadership, Vision, and Service

to the Australian community.

AJAHN BRAHM: Yes.

MING: And with that, my friends, please give

a warm welcome to Ajahn Brahm.

AJAHN BRAHM: Hi.

[APPLAUSE]

Very good.

First of all, when Shirley-- where is she?

She asked me for a title for the talk

or at least some way of getting people

to come in the old bums on the seats,

I did mention to everybody that I was over 750.

That's my age.

Now, there we go.

That's because you meditate a lot and you're very peaceful.

It means you look only in your 60s.

Well, last year, last year in Bhutan,

I celebrated my 750th birthday.

And I'm a monk.

I have to be honest.

I cannot tell a lie.

It really was 750 months.

[LAUGHS]

Now, if you're a monk, saying you're old

makes you have more cred.

People actually respect you more.

So if I just said I was 62 and 1/2 and 63, that's so ordinary.

But 750, that's awesome.

So I'm 750-- almost 762 now.

Wow.

But this is one example of learning

how to make some fun in life and learn

how to make some fun in your workplace,

learning how to do what Meg is trying to teach everybody,

to have a more happy, more powerful mind,

learning how to see things in a different way.

Obviously, in anywhere in our modern world,

we have to see things looking out of the box.

And one of the ways the Buddhist monks can actually

see things which other people can't see

is we literally live outside of the box.

We do things which are totally different than anybody else.

And because we live outside of the box,

we can actually innovate, and especially in what we're

teaching here, mindfulness.

Mindfulness is so last decade.

So we've made more advances since that time.

I was telling Bill a few moments ago at lunch, mindfulness, OK.

So there was this woman, a very wealthy woman,

who went to work one day.

And there was many burglaries in the neighborhood.

So she told the guard on the front of her mansion,

be mindful.

There are many burglars around.

And when she came home from work,

she found that her house had been ransacked.

Burglars had stolen everything.

And she told the guard at her house,

I asked you to be mindful.

Why weren't you mindful?

And the guard said, I was mindful, Madam.

I saw the burglars going in, and I was mindful,

burglar going in, burglar going in, burglar going in.

I saw them taking your jewelry out.

I was mindful.

I noted jewelry going out, jewelry going.

I saw them going in again with their truck.

I saw your safe going out.

I noted safe going out.

I was mindful all the time.

Would that be very helpful?

No.

Mindfulness is not enough.

So I seen at the lunch desk, Days of Mindfulness.

Mindfully putting food into mouth.

Food going in.

More food going in.

More food going in.

Well, that's being mindful.

But it's not sometimes being wise.

So if you want to stay ahead of the curve with mindfulness,

we add something more, which is kindness.

And if you add kindness to mindfulness,

you get the latest-- [LAUGHS] stop laughing.

Putting me off.

The latest buzzword in psychology, kindfulness.

So don't just be mindful.

Be kindful.

Now, what that really means is yes, you're aware.

But you got some responsibilities, some duties.

Be kind to what's going on.

Now, you live in the tech world.

I don't know if you heard this story.

It's a true story.

This was in NASA a few years ago in Houston.

And they had just installed a new mainframe computer,

big number cruncher.

And it cost millions and millions of dollars.

And after installing the big number cruncher

in the headquarters of NASA in Houston,

they tried to boot it up.

They could not get it working.

And because this was costing millions of dollars every hour,

they got every high tech guy in the whole-- and woman--

in the whole of the United States and Canada--

even Europe-- flying them in first class.

They needed them immediately to try and fix up the problem.

No one could fix up the problem.

There was one tech guy who was a Buddhist.

He was a Thai man.

And he said, well, if no IT guy can fix up the problem,

and if all the best experts have tried and failed,

perhaps it might be something supernatural.

And I know the guy to fix it, because there

was a Thai monk, a meditation monk who

just happened to be visiting the Thai temple in Houston.

The nice thing about monks is they're cheap.

I don't get anything out of this.

And what do they have to lose?

Nothing.

So they invited this Thai monk into the main computer

headquarters, the terminal of NASA.

And what did he do?

A little bit of meditation, kindfulness.

You check it out if you've got any friends in NASA.

After the monk had been in there,

that computer worked perfectly.

It started working again.

And we know that is true because he's

visited San Fran several times.

And one time when he came here, the person receiving him

decided to look at his passport to make

sure his visa was in order.

And this monk has got a diplomatic visa

with no expiry date so he can come into the US

from Thailand at a moment's notice in case NASA needs him.

Now this is the power off kindfulness.

And a similar story, which I also love-- and this is true.

This is one of my disciples-- having meditated

with me in Australia for a year, he went back to school

in Hamburg, Germany, at the University.

And the first day on campus, as he was walking past an ATM

machine, the ATM made a sound.

It was like a gurgle.

And he interpreted that this ATM was welcoming him onto campus.

Don't just think about artificial intelligence.

It already has arrived.

It made a gurgling sound.

And he though it's welcoming him onto campus.

So from that day on, he'd always say hello, guten Morgen,

to his favorite ATM.

He'd always use that and be kind to it.

And after three months of kindfulness to this ATM,

he happened to be having his lunch on a bench within sight

of the ATM machine.

No one had been close to it for at least 15 minutes

when it made the familiar gurgle sound once again.

And he looked at this machine, and a 20 euro note came out.

No one had been close to the machine.

No one had put any cards in or typed in any PIN numbers.

And a $20 note, or 20 euro note came out.

He went over to the ATM, picked up the euro note,

waved it around.

Does this belong to anybody?

No one claimed it.

So he took it away.

This is what happens with the power of kindfulness.

If you're short of cash, you don't need a card.

You don't even need an account.

Just go up to the ATM machine, stroke it, and say,

may you never run out of electricity.

May no one ever hit you when they find

they've got no credit balance.

May you always be happy and well.

And who knows?

You may get $20.

That's an absolutely true story.

Amazing, just the power of the mind just over machines.

So this is also true.

Your computer, if it's not working, if it crashes,

what should you do?

Please don't sear at it.

Please don't get angry at it.

Just take your hand and stroke it.

There, there, hard drive.

[LAUGHS]

You may be laughing at me, but you try it.

At the very least, it'll soften you.

You won't get so angry.

So mindfulness and kindness together,