This afternoon we plan to give you a guided meditation on the eight worldly dhammas. Fame and obscurity are, of course, a pair of them; and in my opinion fame is the most important of the whole eight, and it is the hardest one to let go of. The other three pairs of the eight worldly dhammas don't even matter when someone is overcome with grabbing onto fame, wanting, wanting fame. People don't care about the other three pairs; they don't care if they get blamed, they don't care if they get loss, they don't care if they get pain, as long as they get fame.
In Tasmania, about 20 year ago, there was a fellow who was mentally insane and he killed about 26 people. When he was captured and caught, he asked the police, "Did I set the new record?" This was madness, a totally sick person, but he was out for the fame of killing the most people ever for a single person in Tasmania. He was crazy.
So if you have trouble not having dependence on fame, join the rest of the seven billion people on the planet. It is hard, it is very difficult, and it comes in such subtle ways. For example; it can come when you are out there doing your walking meditation, maybe a bird flies down and lands near close by, would you like the bird to come a little closer to you? That is wanting fame, it is as simple as that.
We have a dog at Wat Kow Tahm, we have cats as well, people are walking past the dog and are kind of hoping that the dog will come to them so that they can pet the dog and in that way they are becoming famous, even though, actually, the dog wants the fame, too.
My mind just went to a dog that I saw who wanted fame - it is a cute story, you might as well hear it. The first time that we taught in Germany, we were teaching in a place near Munich and I was in a room on the second floor. I happened to be looking out the window at some meditators walking down below and the road was right next to it. This road was a little busier than the one here. Maybe it had a car pass along every 15 minutes or so, and it wasn't too far away from the main town.
Now, I'm watching these meditators, very serious, walking back and forth. Then this little short-legged dog, a fluffy little white, round thing, comes waggling up the road. I notice it coming, it's very cute. It stops and looks at the meditators, walking back and forth, as if it has never seen anything that strange ever before. But it didn't worry that much, it walked over to one meditator who had just came to the end of their walking track, it flopped over on its back and it kind of waited for the meditator to give it a tummy rub!
I'm up in my room, the window is shut, and I am laughing like mad. I am also wondering what the meditator is going to do. The meditator staring down at the dog was not interested. They turned gently and walked off. The dog got back on its feet and went over to another meditator, and flopped on it's back. That meditator gave it a tummy rub. It got back on its feet, felt satisfied and walked off down the road. Fame, the dog wanted fame. It also wanted a nice tummy rub.
Now, to let go of fame, I talked about that some days ago, the more content you are, the more you don't want fame - they are direct opposites. Now, it doesn't stop fame coming. This is interesting, too. Fame comes to me and Rosemary. But we are not actually wanting fame. We know it is going to come, because when you do a good job, it is going to come automatically. When people do something well, fame comes. I don't base my whole teaching on whether I get fame, I am not dependent on fame to teach. On another level though, if nobody ever came, then of course I would stop teaching. So lack of that type of fame would indicate that it is now time for me to stop teaching. So in that sense, the fame is valuable as something to use in a beneficial way. In that sense, it is to benefit others by teaching.
The wanting, wanting, wanting type of dependency is reduced, the more we are content with just doing what we are doing. The more we are content with just doing our job, then do we always want to get thanked - no. Often when we want thanks we are wanting fame, we are wanting praise, as well. Can we be content if nobody thanks us? Can we be content just to do what we are doing? This is similar to what I talked about being content earlier in the retreat, too, because if you are very content doing what you are doing, then you are not dependent on fame in order to have happiness.
So with formal practice, we will give you a technique, hopefully, later today. With informal practice, we can practice what I just said all of the time, trying to be more content with what you are doing.