Day 326/365: Guided Meditation | Ajahn Brahm

15 minutes of meditation advice/inspiration followed by 45 minutes of semi-guided meditation. There are some useful questions and answers at the end of the meditation practice. Ajahn talks about letting go and relaxing the mind. The motto: "Make Peace, Be Kind, Be Patient".

Transcript

Very good,

Welcome everybody to this afternoon's ongoing meditation class.

I have to say every week,

If there's some people coming for the introduction to meditation class,

The series of four lessons for those who haven't meditated before,

That class is being held in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class where we meditate for about 45 minutes.

So if you've never meditated before,

You're going to get tortured in here sitting still in Guantanamo Bay,

They call it sustained stress positions and we don't want to get sued or get a complaint from the Human Rights Commission.

So if you're coming for the first time,

Please move to my right.

It's nice and comfortable there,

The teacher's brilliant.

This is the ongoing class and for today,

Many people have learned many types of meditation and mindfulness especially is really common these days,

Sweeping the body,

Whatever it is.

But when we are mindful and aware of something,

What are we mindful of?

Because many people say,

Oh you should put your awareness on the feelings in the body or put your awareness on the breath or put your awareness on whatever,

On your thoughts.

But what is really important in meditation is putting your awareness on not what you're meditating on but how you are meditating.

Are you meditating wanting to get something,

Wanting to attain something?

Because if you are,

You'll find you're going to get very disappointed and frustrated.

The very wanting to get somewhere is what will stress your mind and not give it any peace.

If you're trying to get rid of things,

It will make the mind again tense and negative.

So it really doesn't matter what you're aware of but my goodness,

It does matter how you are aware.

So in the meditation which I teach you,

I usually give you some guidance in the first few minutes,

Just to be aware of your physical body first of all.

But you also hear me saying,

Don't just be mindful of those feelings,

Learn how to relax them.

And I ask you to learn how to relax them because the way you learn to relax the body is learning literally to let it go.

You cannot force the body to relax.

You can't just get it and grab it by the throat and say relax or else.

That's like you have a kid who can't go to sleep well at night.

And so you go into the kid's bedroom and you grab the kid by the neck,

You go to sleep kid or else.

Is that going to get your kid to go to sleep?

Of course it doesn't.

It gets even more afraid,

Restless,

Upset and go further away from sleepiness.

And the same,

You can't force your body to relax.

You can't tell it relax or else.

And the only way to get the body to relax is just to let it relax.

And with the beginning part of the meditation,

You're mindful,

Aware of the body and you make mistakes every now and again.

You sort of tense up,

You're afraid,

Whatever and the body feels tenser,

Feels tighter,

More pain,

More aches.

You can recognize it's not relaxed.

But then,

Every now and again,

You know,

You learn how to just let it go,

Let it be or be kind and then you feel it relaxing.

And so this little exercise of being aware of your body and learning how to relax it,

Teaches you,

You know,

The importance of not what you're watching but how you are watching it.

You may be watching an ache in the body and if you're really afraid of it,

Oh my goodness,

You know,

I've got a very common problem.

People's legs go numb.

This happened to me many,

Many,

Many years ago when I was still a lay meditator.

My legs went numb.

Instead of just watching it,

I was like,

Oh my goodness,

If my legs go numb,

That means there's no blood going into my legs.

If there's no blood going into my legs,

That means that they'll get gangrene.

If they get gangrene before I can get out of meditation,

They have to cut my leg off.

It'll be all black and won't be able to use it.

I'll be laying for the rest of my life.

I was watching that feeling with fear.

And that was why I was getting worse and worse.

You know,

Just there was one occasion,

If anyone's legs do ever feel numb,

I was meditating and it was happening a lot when I started meditating.

And one day I just get fed up.

Okay,

You can be numb.

You want to get your cut off,

That's fine.

I'm just going to sit here.

And I just,

You know,

Literally meditated just letting it go.

And it was one of those first times you realize just how clever my body is when I don't interfere.

Because you know,

The legs went numb.

And then without any warning,

Without me moving,

No,

This or the blood came,

They came alive again,

All by themselves.

They just did it.

I didn't do anything.

And I realized my body looks after itself.

So when you don't look at things with fear,

With letting go,

Just allowing the body to do the body stuff,

You find everything relaxes,

Everything gets even better than normal,

It gets relaxed and peaceful.

So what you're learning in the first part of meditation,

Number one,

What we mean to actually let things be,

To be kind,

To accept,

To embrace and just be with things,

Because you realize that is what relaxes the body.

At the same time,

You're not so much watching the body as watching how you're watching.

In other words,

Just whether you're doing with fear,

With control,

If you try and control the body,

You get afraid with it,

You get negative towards it,

It gets much worse.

You relax,

Let it be and the body gets really nice.

And you also notice that the last year I've developed this request to ask you that when your body does get relaxed,

Please be aware of the pleasure of relaxation.

Develop that perception of pleasure,

Of having a body which is nicely relaxed.

You know you've been walking for a long time and then you can sit down and you can relax,

That feels really good.

I know it's,

I'm gonna say good old days,

But it has to be bad old days.

You know when you go to school in the snow in UK and your feet will be frozen when you got back,

Not really frozen but they felt really cold.

And then your mum will get sort of a basin of warm water and you'd soak your feet in warm water.

Have you ever done that?

Have you been walking and your feet are really cold?

Doesn't that really feel great?

There's a pleasure in the body relaxing and feeling comfortable.

You perceive that,

You look out for that when you're relaxing.

And not only does that keep the body relaxed,

But it surprised me at first it actually takes the body into deeper relaxation automatically.

You know whatever the mind notices,

Hey this is fun,

It will go and play there some more and take it even deeper.

The body gets even more relaxed once you recognise the delight in a relaxed body.

And that's a wonderful way to learn how to relax your own body.

That has huge benefits if you can't sleep at night.

Relax your body.

Don't get afraid,

Don't get tense.

If you're really sick,

Relax the body.

You know you're gonna get some operation,

Some medical procedure and relax the body.

And then you know the tension,

The tightness goes away and it's much easier.

But most importantly is we're already focusing not just on our body but how we're watching it so we know how to relax the body.

It's that process of relaxing or rather what relaxes the body,

We start to get to know.

That's exactly what we focus on when we are meditating on our mental world.

It's not so much getting rid of the past,

Avoiding the future,

It's how we're doing that.

How can you relax your mind?

What is the thing which you are so called doing?

What is the attitude of mind?

How are you looking at the mind?

If you're looking at the mind wanting something,

You know wanting to get some attainment,

Then you're actually screwing up the mind.

It gets tightness and tense.

In the same way when you go to work,

You have to get something done,

You got a letter to write,

You have to know to get,

Make an appointment on time.

You know you have to remember to call up somebody,

There's stuff to be done.

That makes your body tired,

It's tension,

You're trying to get something or get something done,

Get rid of things.

But you know there's a time at work,

Maybe there's not a time at your work,

Maybe a time at home,

Time sometimes,

You can just sit there and actually do nothing and relax.

No appointments,

No place to get to,

Nothing to get rid of.

And you find your mental world starts to relax,

You start to feel free.

And this is what we learn how to do in our meditation.

It's not so much what we're watching but how we're watching it.

We're watching this mental world and to see if you can watch it the same way that you relax the body,

Just letting it be.

It's a strange thing that when people say,

Get bothered with too much thinking,

They try and stop the thinking.

You know there's a very old joke but it's so apt,

You know the four monks with a vow of silence,

One of them sneezed,

The first monk said bless you,

Second monk said haha,

You've broken your vow of silence,

Third one said haha yes so have you,

Fourth one said I'm glad I'm the only one here who can keep quiet.

See whenever you make a comment,

You've broken your vow of silence.

That's what happens,

We're trying to make the mind peaceful,

Come on be peaceful.

You've already disturbed the peace when you have any thought or any intention like that.

So just trying to make the mind peaceful just creates the opposite.

So instead we learn how to watch this mind just with the sense of kindness,

Letting it be,

Being compassionate towards it.

And by being kind,

Being compassionate towards it,

That means the best simile,

Opening the door of your heart to your mind,

Whatever it is,

That's fine by me.

Got a crazy mind?

Fine,

What's wrong with being crazy?

You've got a sort of a dull mind,

What's wrong with being dull?

Just be with your mind.

It really does not matter if you're restless or if you're dull.

What really matters is how you react to that restlessness,

How you're reacting to the dullness.

If you can be at peace with it,

You are building peace.

You're making more and more peace for your future.

If you're making war with your mind,

Which is what most Buddhists actually do,

They're crazy,

Making war with their mind.

In other words,

Trying to change it,

Trying to conquer it,

You'll find that the mind will never get peaceful.

If you want peace for the future,

You have to make peace right now.

That's why for many people when they ask me,

What do you do?

And you meditate.

Am I supposed to watch my breath?

Am I supposed to watch?

What am I supposed to do Ajahn Brahm?

Tell me.

And the answer is make peace.

Make peace right now with whatever you're experiencing.

Don't go to war.

Have a ceasefire with your own silly mind.

Make peace with your mind.

Be kind and be gentle.

Actually I'll change that gentleness now because I've been saying that for such a long time,

Make peace,

Be kind,

Be gentle.

But you all know that.

Let's change it.

Let's tweak it.

Make peace,

Be kind,

Be patient.

We'll debate in a moment.

Because one of the problems with people is,

Ajahn Brahm,

It's not working.

You haven't waited long enough.

That's the simile,

You know,

How do I get the glass of water to be perfectly still?

You put it down.

And after a while it gets still all by itself.

Being patient means stopping.

It's not peaceful yet.

Is it peaceful yet?

No,

It's not peaceful.

Come on,

Be peaceful.

Be patient.

Give it time to be peaceful.

Your poor old mind.

Sometimes we don't give it time.

We keep interrupting.

It's not working as fast as we want it to.

So while you're doing meditation,

Just make peace in this moment.

So I'm looking at my tired mind.

I've been very busy just before I came in here.

And lots of stuff going on,

Stupid stuff.

And I look at that and just,

Okay,

Make peace with it.

And if it comes up in my meditation,

I'll keep making peace with it.

I won't fight it.

If it wants to come up,

It can.

I'm not fighting,

I'm making peace.

You know what happens?

All that stuff,

After a while,

Stops coming up because I'm making peace with my mind.

I'm not agitating it.

I'm not like one of those monks,

Yeah,

You've broken your vow of silence too.

And I'm being kind to my mind.

Poor old mind,

It's obvious,

You know,

I've been working hard,

So of course you'll be a bit restless.

I may be tired,

I may be old,

So you're going to get a little bit dull more than other people.

I'm kind to my mind.

I'm also patient.

I wait in this moment.

Don't care how long it takes.

I know there's nothing faster that I can do than making peace,

Being kind,

Being gentle.

So I don't really care what I'm observing,

Whether it's dullness,

Whether it's restlessness,

Whether it's a breath,

Whatever it is,

As long as I continue to make peace,

Be kind and be patient.

The essence of meditation.

Da da da.

Okay,

So that's instructions for your beginning.

So we're now going to do some meditation once again because this is the,

It is the first week for the introduction to meditation,

No it's the second week,

Isn't it?

Anyway,

For those coming to the introduction to meditation class,

That is being held in the room to my right.

This is the class,

The first four classes where people learn meditation.

If you come for the introductory to meditation class,

Please that's in the room to my right.

This is the ongoing class.

Okay,

You have been warned.

So here we go.

So now if you'd like to get yourselves nice and comfortable,

If you'd like to stretch or whatever,

Whatever you need to do,

Because now we're going to get our bodies into a nice position so we can meditate really nice and deeply.

Very good.

As I mentioned to you,

I'll be leading the first five or ten minutes giving instructions and after that I'll be quiet and let you meditate by yourself.

And of course,

Always it's taken that you turn off all mobile phones and stuff.

Close your eyes.

When your eyes are closed,

It's almost automatic you become aware of your physical body.

It's not automatic,

Just turn the attention onto your body.

When your eyes close,

You become more sensitive to physical feelings.

So much of the brain's power gets taken up by visual material.

When you've got your eyes closed and there's nothing to see,

You literally do have more space to feel.

And as you feel your body,

Be kind to it.

Can you adjust your body right now?

Adjusting your legs,

Which is a common source of aches and pains.

Adjusting your bottom.

This is not school,

It's okay to fidget.

Feeling your back,

Your back doesn't have to be perfectly straight.

For some people that is the best posture.

Other people like to lean back on the chair or against the wall.

And whatever is comfortable for you is the best.

And when you can't move your body anymore to make it more comfortable,

Then still be aware of your body.

And see what you can do to make your body more comfortable.

Even without moving it.

Just looking at parts of the body,

Say you're,

I'm looking at my calves now.

Feeling tension in those muscles.

I feel tension there.

And then I move,

I don't move sorry,

I play around with the way I look at that feeling.

I'm aware of how I experience that tension.

And the mindfulness gives me feedback.

And I can feel my muscles relaxing.

I have learned how to let go.

I've learned how to look at that feeling in such a way that it doesn't get worse.

It actually gets easier.

I learned how to take the pressure off.

Learn how to loosen any tightnesses.

By being aware and getting the feedback,

That is how you learn.

And what you're doing is watching how you watch.

I literally start learning how to make peace,

Be kind and patient with the muscles in my calves.

And I feel that they relax.

And then the other part of my body,

Then my lower part of my body is the tightness there around my waist.

There it came out.

And feel,

You can make peace,

Be kind,

Be gentle.

And the body relaxes little by little.

And as my body relaxes more and more,

As any pressures,

Any tightnesses get all released,

The body feels so loose.

Nothing is being stretched,

Squashed or pulled.

So my body has no pressure on it at all.

And that is a very pleasant feeling.

To be aware is a delight for a body which is beginning to relax.

What you notice at the light,

The body relaxes even more.

When your body is very relaxed,

You can feel that delight.

Notice the time to let the body go.

If you let the body go too early,

You'll have aches and pains later on.

And your meditation will be disturbed.

Spending time relaxing the body has those benefits.

When you do let the body go,

What are you aware of?

And how are you aware?

You may have heard the sound of the helicopter or the sound of my voice.

The sound is disturbing.

As Ajahn Chah used to say,

It's not the sound disturbs you,

You disturb the sound by the way you perceive it.

We watch how we perceive things.

So nothing can disturb us when we don't disturb it.

And all the time,

Whatever you're aware of,

Make peace.

Don't fight.

Be kind.

Don't get angry or ashamed.

And be patient.

Just wait in this moment.

Tree takes a long time to grow.

Meditation is much faster.

And the feedback given by mindfulness will tell you your mind is relaxing and getting more and more and more peaceful.

Until you can get the delight,

The joy of a still mind.

See if you can perceive the delight of a mind which is relaxed,

Which doesn't have to do anything,

Which is just here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

You can see the joy of being here.

Be mindful of how you are being mindful.

Always making peace.

Being kind and being patient.

Be mindful of how you are being mindful.

Be mindful of how you are being mindful.

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Be mindful of how you are being mindful.

It's getting close to the end of the meditation.

Don't open your eyes yet.

Just be mindful of the general quality of relaxation,

Peace and freedom in your body and mind.

How calm are you?

How still have you become?

What does that peace feel like?

What worked and what didn't work?

This is how we learn.

We don't really judge our meditation.

We just grow,

That's all.

Grow in peace.

Grow in the ability to relax both body and mind.

So there's no tension anywhere.

So now I'm going to ring the gong three times.

Please listen as usual.

The last ringing of the gong vanishes.

There we go.

Okay.

So now after the meditation,

This is the opportunity for questions.

I'll try and keep them on meditation related subjects and I know it's always hard for people to ask a question in public.

So we do have a little box in the back there where people can write their questions and they'll be answered on the Saturday afternoon class.

There's also some on the internet.

These lessons are very popular,

They are streamed internationally.

So we've got one from the UK and one from the same fellow who asked a question last night from Syria.

Isn't it wonderful?

You can actually create some peace in such a place.

So what was said here was gone all the way to UK and also to Syria.

First of all,

Can you explain your method of meditation on the four elements?

Thank you.

That's from James in the UK.

You don't really do a meditation on the four elements.

And maybe when I became a monk,

Because I trained in theoretical physics,

The four elements never made much sense to me.

So you have this whole smorgasbord of the meditation techniques,

Trainings available to you.

And that was one which basically because of my training made absolutely no logical sense.

It was a way that in the time of the Buddha 2500 years ago,

They looked at the material world stuff,

Things.

So I don't really do a meditation on the four elements.

You don't have to.

The idea in meditation is you don't meditate on things.

You meditate to get the mind so still that when it's perfectly still,

Like the forest lake,

Only then does it perfectly reflect the moon and the stars and the heavens above.

If there's any ripples on the surface of that lake,

Any movement,

Then it distorts the reflection.

So the purpose of meditation is to still the mind.

As the Buddha said,

Samadhi pachaya yathā bhūta yānādasana.

This is from stillness,

From samadhi,

The mind sees things as they truly are.

But when the mind has got movement in it,

It's got thoughts,

When it does things,

You're disturbing the insight.

So if you wanted to understand the nature of stuff,

The best way of understanding the nature of stuff is to see stuff disappear,

To see the four elements just vanish.

And that's the point of stillness.

When things become still,

They disappear.

When they disappear,

That's when you can understand them.

The simile which I've given many times,

This is for James in the UK,

Is a simile of the tadpole and the frog.

Many of you have heard that before.

A tadpole can never understand the nature of water.

No more than a fish can understand what water is.

A tadpole is born in water,

Lived all its life in water.

How can it understand water?

It's just always there.

The difference between a fish and a tadpole is that one day the tadpole grows legs and arms,

She becomes a frog.

One day,

A little tadpole,

Now a frog,

Jumps out of the lake.

Doesn't know really what it's doing but standing or sitting,

Squatting,

I think is the right word,

On dry land,

She notices something is missing.

Something which has always been there is no longer there.

That is water.

Only now can the tadpole,

Now a frog,

Understand what water is.

The same with stuff,

For elements,

Body,

Atoms,

Concrete,

Flowers,

Trees,

Sky,

Space.

The only way you can understand what that is,

Is not by reflecting on it,

Not by thinking about it.

By getting the mind so still that your whole body and all that stuff which we call the world,

Vanishes.

So you go into the world of the mind,

You can't feel the body anymore.

That's deep meditation,

That's Ajahnas.

Someone can touch you,

You won't be able to hear,

Too feel it.

You can ring the gong as loud as you like,

You won't be able to hear it.

You've gone so deep inside yourself,

Perfectly awake,

Perfectly alert,

But in the sixth sense,

The sense of the mind,

Which scientists deny exists,

But crikey,

Monks get into that all the time.

Stuff which they deny exists,

But actually is there.

Sometimes it's like,

Who was that fellow in Queensland said there's no gays in North Queensland.

It was that cattle,

Wasn't it?

Something,

Yeah,

Crazy people.

They say,

Scientists say there's no mind.

Yeah,

Sure.

But anyway,

That's what we do and in there,

Just we get into the deep jhanas and then there's,

There's no body.

Only now can you understand what body is.

Not by thinking about it,

But by being still.

So that is my meditation on the four elements,

Jhanas.

So afterwards you can understand what the four elements were.

And anyway,

Now from the Syrian question,

After three months of meditation,

I feel that I'm not going anywhere and feel that meditation is like a daily routine activity.

How do I get that nice feeling that I got before?

Okay,

That's a very common question,

A nice question too,

Because it relates to everybody.

You had a nice feeling before,

A fellow from Syria,

And the reason why you can't get it again is because you want it again.

It's so common for people,

Somebody's smiling and laughing here in Perth,

Because they know what I'm talking about.

Have sometimes people got beginner's luck,

Sometimes I might call it beginner's mind,

You get nice deep meditation,

So easy,

And then you can't get it back again.

Why?

Because you want it back again.

And from Syria,

This beautiful teaching of Ajahn Chah,

Now waving at you in Syria,

But he said this,

This is,

Represents a leaf on a tree.

It only moves because of the wind.

If the wind stops,

Then the leaf moves less and less until it becomes perfectly still.

That is the nature of a leaf,

To be still.

It only moves because of something outside of it,

The wind.

By Master Ajahn Chah said,

That's like the human mind.

Your nature is to be still.

If you could only leave the mind alone,

It will become still all by itself.

And that still,

That peace is incredibly joyful,

Blissful,

It's ecstatic,

If you stay there long enough.

But that silent mind,

That still mind,

Can only be reached if the wind stops blowing.

And what do I mean by the wind?

What did Ajahn Chah mean by the wind?

It's the winds of wanting.

Wanting anything disturbs your mind.

So many times,

It's a very difficult one,

But you know,

You realise that in the meditation you don't get peaceful because you want something.

What do I want?

I want that peace I had before.

It's a subtle wanting and you think,

This is nothing wrong with that.

Even wanting good things disturbs the mind,

Let alone wanting bad things.

So in meditation,

All wanting,

All goals,

All places you want to be in the future,

Have to be abandoned.

No wanting,

Just being here.

Content to be here with whatever you have.

And then you will find that this meditation which was very peaceful in the past,

Now comes back to you.

All comes from when you don't want things,

Your mind moves less and less until it becomes perfectly still all by itself.

If you wanted to be still,

No way.

If you let go,

It just happens.

You can feel it.

So from Surya,

What I said today,

You are aware of how you are meditating,

Not what you are meditating on,

Not what stage of meditation you are at,

But what are you doing with what you have got?

Are you content to be here?

Are you really making peace?

Are you really being kind?

And are you patient enough to wait for the end of the aeon to get a deep meditation?

You're not making it have to happen now or today.

So this is part of the course from Surya.

If you understand what I meant,

What Ajahn Chah meant,

By the reason the leaf moves is because of the wind,

You've got to take the wind away,

The leaf will become still.

The reason why your mind is still moving,

Why you haven't got back to that peaceful state,

The wind of wanting is blowing in your mind.

Understand what that wind of wanting is.

Let it go and you'll find the mind will settle down.

All those beautiful states are naturally from Surya,

Even deeper,

More beautiful ones,

They will just come to you.

You're just sitting here and it just happens.

Or the other simile I'm giving my favourite similes now,

The other one is the favourite simile of the donkey and the carrot.

Did I say that last week?

Ah okay,

Donkey and the carrot simile.

Donkey is so stubborn,

You can hit the donkey and the donkey will not move.

So instead of hitting a donkey with a stick,

You tie the stick to the donkey's neck,

So the front of the stick is about two foot in front of the donkey's head,

On the head,

End of the stick,

You tie a string,

On the end of the string,

You tie a carrot.

And the donkey sees a carrot two foot in front of it.

What does a donkey do?

I like carrots,

So moves towards the carrot.

And as the donkey moves,

The carrot moves,

The donkey moves faster,

The carrot moves faster and the carrot is always about two foot in front of the donkey.

That's how people get donkeys to pull carts.

Because the donkey likes a carrot and you can understand that in your life.

Sometimes there's so many carrots in life,

The beautiful relationship,

The happiness,

The meditation,

Whatever,

You know,

It's almost in front of you.

You can almost see it,

You go towards it and it goes away from you.

I can't catch it.

You know,

It's always,

It's really close sometimes.

So Buddhist donkeys know how to catch carrots.

What they do,

They run like hell after the carrot,

Really fast.

And of course,

It doesn't matter how fast you run after the carrot,

The carrot's always two foot in front.

But Buddhist donkeys,

We know how to stop,

To let it go,

To stop chasing things,

Just to let it be,

Be in the present moment.

So donkey stops.

What happens to the carrot?

The carrot moves further away.

But does that worry you at all?

No,

Just let it be.

It's okay.

Who cares?

And so the carrot moves further away until it's four foot in front of the donkey's mouth and then something strange happens.

The donkey starts swinging,

Sorry,

The carrot starts swinging towards the donkey.

And soon that carrot is two foot in front of the donkey's mouth but this time coming at great speed towards the donkey.

And all the donkey needs to do,

When the carrot,

Remember,

He's been running after the carrot,

Suddenly stops,

Carrot swings up,

Swings back,

Goes so close to the donkey's mouth,

The last thing the donkey has to remember is compassion.

Carrot,

The door of my mouth is open to you.

That's how donkeys catch a carrot.

So from Syria,

That's how you get your next deep meditation.

Stop,

Stop chasing it.

Stop running after peace,

Stillness,

Bliss.

Stop.

When you stop,

The bliss,

The happiness will go further away from you.

Be patient and soon it will start swinging towards you.

When the deep blisses are about to happen,

Don't be afraid.

Open the door of your heart to Nibbana.

Thank you.

Hee hee hee hee hee.

That's one of the best similes I've invented.

So hopefully you enjoyed that in Syria.

So any questions from here?

Oh,

Isn't it great,

From Syria,

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you for inspiring people in Australia to know in a very tense country,

Which has got a lot of problems,

Still people are using some meditation to get some peace.

So if people can meditate in Syria,

Have you got an excuse not to meditate?

I've got a noisy family.

My kids are like terrorists.

No they are not.

You can tolerate things here for goodness sake.

So are there any questions from the floor?

Okay,

I'm sure there will be some questions afterwards when you line up.

So we'll finish now and thank you for coming.

So now we can pay respects to the Buddha,

Dhamma and the Sangha and then we can do what we need to do.