Namo Tatsa Bhagavatvara Hatu Vissamasam Budhasa Bodhana Maang Sanghana Matsami The last time I ever saw Lumpur Cha,
Hachan Cha was in Thailand in 1981 and I just spent a couple of months there,
Mostly a very beautiful monastery,
Quite remote mountainous area and very special time,
Very quiet,
Spacious and living fairly simply.
Before leaving I was there,
I was looking after a very,
Very old lady,
Sister Nanda,
She was a kind of honorary nun,
She had permission to keep her curly white hair,
Although she did shave her eyebrows as an act of renunciation.
And she was a very dear friend and she'd come all the way to Thailand,
In fact at that time she wasn't Sister Nanda,
She was Winifred,
That's what she was called at that time.
And she came all the way to Thailand and she was well into her 80s at that time and quite frail and almost completely deaf,
So you always had to speak very loudly.
Tiny little woman and I was just about to leave Thailand with her to sort of.
.
.
I had to leave then to kind of accompany her back to England and we went to take leave of Achancha and he was staying in one of the small branch monasteries and we were with a novice monk,
An anagarika,
Who kind of went to where Achancha was to see if it was suitable to go and pay respects.
And Numpulcha was resting,
It was after meal time,
He was resting.
And this anagarika decided to wait till a particular time and if Achancha was still sleeping by then,
Still resting,
That we wouldn't disturb him,
We would leave.
But exactly on the dot of the time that he was going to give up,
Achancha opened his eyes and sat up.
And so we were invited to go and take leave.
And the only thing I remember that he said,
He said to me,
He said,
Make sure you remember this time,
Don't forget.
And that's kind of the feeling I have about the end of this retreat time.
That tomorrow evening we'll have gone our separate ways and a few people will still be here but the retreat will have ended.
And there's obviously a sense of kind of feeling of sadness in some sense because it has,
Well certainly for me it's been quite a special time being here practicing together with you all.
And also a sense of concern really for your welfare in the future and just trying to think about what you can take with you from this time that we spent together practicing,
Reflecting on the teachings of the Buddha,
Practicing to try to understand more clearly what it is to be a human being,
How to live more peacefully and happily as human beings on this planet,
More happily,
More compassionately,
More lovingly with other human beings and with ourselves.
