Growing from Difficulties Ajahn Brahm 3 April 2020

So this evening I'm giving my talk to mostly empty hall and it's very strange experience to give such talk when there's no one here because in my life as Buddhist monk I'm usually used to giving talks in front of much larger crowds and think my record is about 10,000 people which There's quite decent crowd in huge hall and some sitting outside as well. But it doesn't really matter because part of the training which received as Buddhist monk is learning how to adapt to all different situations and to have that confidence and trust just in your training that whatever occurs for you, you could always not just bear it and endure it and wait for it to pass but you can always get something out of it. There's always something which you can learn from whatever happens to you in life. And one of my favorite stories which has popped into my mind just now was the story which don't think I've told for quite few years now was the story of the the man sorry sorry the story of the donkey who was walking through the forest and as he was walking through the forest the donkey fell into big hole in the forest. It was well, but the well was dry. It'd been abandoned. And so the donkey was at the bottom of the well. The donkeys wasn't injured at all, just bit bruised and bit sort of concerned, but he was at the bottom of the well and couldn't get himself out. He was in trouble. And so the donkey started to yell eore eore eore trying to get someone's attention so he could be saved from being at the bottom of very difficult situation. Eore shouted the donkey. Eventually, somebody heard the donkey, but unfortunately it was very mean farmer. And the mean farmer saw the the well, the dry well, saw the donkey in the bottom. And he never liked the donkey, always stealing the the farmer's vegetables and grass. So he decided, so did the farmer, to as it were, just to finish off the donkey and fill up the well at the same time. He got out spade and started digging earth up and throwing it into the well to fill up the well with the donkey at the bottom. It was very, very cool and nasty thing to do. And always when we do cruel and nasty things, you always find that the bad karma comes back to bite you. As it happened in this story, because the donkey, as soon as it realized that the farmer was trying to bury it alive, trying to kill it, the donkey shouted even louder, He which in donkey language means don't kill me. But then the donkey fell silent. And the farmer thought he hadn't put that much dirt into the hole. He didn't know why the donkey had stopped shouting so soon, but he thought maybe he had heart attack or maybe he just laid down. But anyway, the donkey was obviously dead. So thought the farmer, he just carried on putting earth into the hole. More and more earth, more and more earth, because he had to finish off burying the donkey and filling up the hole. But what the farmer didn't realize was that donkey, that donkey had developed insight, had developed some wisdom. Instead of shouting and complaining when things are going wrong, which is what most people do in life, especially at time like this, even when it's life and death matter, instead of shouting and complaining, the donkey just stood there. And when the next shovel full of earth was thrown over its head, the donkey just shook it off, stamped it in under its feet, and the donkey was an inch higher. and other shovel full of earth, shaking it off, not complaining, stamped it in under its feet, another inch higher. And this had been going on long time, and eventually two donkey ears appeared above the top of the well. But the farmer wasn't paying any attention. The farmer didn't practice mindfulness, awareness of his surroundings, or any insight. He was very bad man. Just wanted to kill the donkey and fill up the well. So, few more shovel fulls of earth. Shake it off. Stamped it under his stamp it in under his feet. And the donkey grew another inch closer to the escape. And soon the donkey was so close to the top of the well, he just jumped over the edge of the well and was free. But before he was free, before he ran away, the donkey decided, out of compassion, of course, to bite the farmer on the backside. As said, can't resist this. Please excuse me. They say because he wanted to to remind him of his ass his ass sorry to look after the donkeys in instead of trying to kill them. And also to say that that's bad karm never to be cruel to anybody in this world. And the reason that's how the donkey escaped from the well, not by complaining, by figuring out that whatever happens to us in life, if we're in the bottom of well and we're being buried alive, that death is happening. It's amazing that when you don't worry, there's always things which you can do. There's ways of coping. There's ways of seeing things in different way. and who knows making something out of your desperate situation. And of course that's what's happening now in many parts of the world when people just focusing just know on the know obvious real dangers and misery and sometimes depression which comes from the situation of this covid-19 virus. But even though it's very difficult situation, there's always something which we can do with it. Always something which can happen. Recently got an email from the college where went to was young student in Cambridge and they were saying that they had shut down their college as well. And of course these colleges were so old. It wasn't the first time they'd shut down. And they were telling that in their records, the previous time they'd shut down totally because of pandemics was during the plagues in the 17th century in 1665 and 1666. That plague just destroyed so many livelihoods. So they had to shut down the college and at that time one of the people at Emanuel no not at Emanuel he was at Trinity College but up at Cambridge University was gentleman called Sir Isaac Newton and he had to leave the college and go up to Lincolnshire somewhere just to what we'd call these days socially isolate and that while he was there in his his notes He said this was one of the most fruitful intellectual times of his life. Many of his great discoveries would obviously have happened there when he was away by himself alone. There's so much that we can learn when we're by ourself. It's not only that but have to say that at the same time there was another fellow who was this time at the college where was at Emanuel College called John Harvard and of course that's the John Harvard who founded Harvard University in Massachusetts USA and if any of you ever do visit that place in the future and you look at the famous statue of John Harvard standing there in front of one of the buildings. You will notice just on the pedestal on which he's standing there is the this called the lion rampant. It's an emblem which is the emblem of Emanuel College in Cambridge where studied. But one of the alumni of that college of Emanuel College eventually became the bishop of Southern Cathedral and he wrote he gave this lecture about the the origin of Harvard University where it actually came from and he had all the documents there to prove his research was valid because it was in Soduk south of the rivers in London where John Harvard's family were from and his father was very successful businessman. He had pubs, gambling dens apparently and peace excuse me, houses of ill repute, you know, prostitution and stuff. And this was just south of the river temps. And the reason why he made so much money out of that was because north of the rivers was controlled by the Puritans and the it was part of the dasis of Westminster. So in brief, every Saturday night, you might say, all the people of London went over the bridges, you know, to have their merryntment because north of the river temps, you couldn't even get any alcohol. So because of that John Harvard's family made fortune but maybe because of their you know livelihood that were during the plagues his whole family living in the dasis of Soduk just south of the rivers were all killed they all died in the plague which meant that John Harvard was the the sole inheritor of all of that money and he left England to go to United States with all that money and with that money he founded Harvard University and please excuse me on the wages of sin but anyway and it was all because of pandemic at the time but anyway that was just an interesting of course Harvard University has moved on since those times but But it's amazing what happens the unexpected things which happen during emergencies and just what can occur when things go wrong. There's always some opportunities for growth, understanding, compassion, which is why always like to call disasters, pandemics, where there's bushfire, as all these things as opportunities. Opportunities instead of just staying in the bottom of the well and complaining to be able to shake it off. Yes, it's still bit dirty and unpleasant, sometimes very unpleasant. Shake it off, dig it in and grow from it. It's part of the thing which still remember from my teachings and experience with great teacher like an Ajancha when anything when anything was difficulty for me. Ajanchcha would always ask me to regard that as my teacher to not regard Ajenta as my teacher but some of the difficult aspects of life in the forests because these were forests in northeast Thailand and the food was very rough and it's all they had so you had to eat it. There was no choice in the matter and it was hot and there was many diseases there. remember one sort of doctor said it was like it was like soup of bacteria and you're really lucky not to catch more of these bacteria. But you know, was reasonably healthy. But whenever you did get sickness or whenever you did get an irritation, whenever anything happened to you which was unpleasant and you went to your teacher to try and get some sympathy, he said, "No, that is your teacher now. The fever you have, look at that as your teacher. What is it trying to teach you? When there was just really, really hot weather and it was very dry, that heat, that discomfort, that is your teacher. When the forest was very noisy because of so many animals, the noise and you couldn't sleep, your sleeplessness, that was your teacher. And don't run away from the lessons of life. Don't try and cut classes. Stay there even though it's bit unpleasant because you learn so much know from nature. Nature is teacher in its many forms and it teaches us so many lessons like the COVID 19 is teaching us so many many lessons. And you find that during those disasters, during those pandemics, during the times when many many people die, many people live as well. And so those people who live, do they learn? Do they grow? Do they understand anything? Or is it just something which we look upon as trauma for the rest of our lives instead of growing from it? And how can you say growing from it? Because all of the pain of life, it will come back to us if we don't go into it and understand it. We usually run away from difficulties of life. Whenever there is fire, we run in the opposite direction. As don't know why, maybe I'm crazy monk, but remember some of the occasions when instead of running away, run towards and the memory which comes up was the time when first came to Western Australia. I've been here 37 years now. And when first came over here, volunteered to actually go and teach in some of the prisons. And one of the prisons would go and teach in regularly was over in Bumbbury prison. Once week think would go down there and the only way to get the transport down there was get on the train and then would stay the afternoon in Bumby and then in the evening go to the prison to give the meditation talks and enjoyed it but in the afternoon remember one afternoon was just meditating on the beach in Bumbrey just there's no one there at that time middle of the afternoon meditating medating very quietly, usually couple of hours meditating. And then and then felt this didn't feel it, but could hear this whis going past my ear and then another sound pass the other ear and realized that someone was throwing stones at me and then another stone and then another stone. And realized that if kept sitting there for any longer, soon one of those stones might hit me and the people throwing it would make bad karma. It's amazing. wasn't so afraid of hurt or pain. must have be honest with you. So opened my eyes and stood up, turned around. noticed there was maybe about eight or nine boys maybe 14 or 15, could be bit younger, maybe 13 or 14, throwing stones in my direction and one of them just shouted out, "Get off our beach, Rajishi." This was the days of Bhagawan Shri Rajnish when people thought he was going to come to Perth to open up center and he sent one of his senior disciples to actually to talk to the media and she was very very unpleasant apparently and so they thought that was Rajnishi just because had bald head and brown robe and started throwing stones at me. So what do you do in difficult situations like that? That's your teacher. How do you respond? So because of my training, my gent shrug it off, turn around and walk towards those those young young boys. It was wonderful because that was the last thing they expected for me to turn around and walk towards them. They would expect me just to run away. But anyway, walked towards them and about, you know, say about eight or nine of them and they all ran away. They were the ones who ran away. didn't have to throw any stones. just throwed my courage and fearlessness at them, just walking slowly towards them. One of them stayed as the rest ran away. And asked him, "Why are you throwing those stones?" And when they explained to me, he said, "Look, I'm not rash." I'm Buddhist monk and even if wear rashishi, it's not the right thing to throw stones at people sitting on the beach. And then we had nice conversation about Buddhism and meditation and and the other kids came up and joined in the conversation and we parted as friends and they realized their mistake. So that was my teacher for that day. stone coming past my ear and another stone. Instead of just rejecting it, just go towards it. found that often in any sicknesses which have had. And some of those sicknesses, you don't go to see the doctors. You go to see the sickness instead. You go right inside instead of running away and said, give me something to get over the pain." No, you go into the pain instead of, "I'll get rid of this ache." No, you go into the ache. Instead of running away, you run into things. When you do that, you learn so much about the body and the way it re reacts to sicknesses and pains. You know, this is only my personal experience obviously, but can't see why my body is any different than anybody else's body. When you actually go into these feelings, you can you can learn how to understand them and relax them and things get loose and just energies start to come into your body and you start to heal up. It's wonderful little experience just not being afraid of aches and pains in the body and even fever. If there is fever, it's body's way of dealing with the the bacteria or the virus within you. As long as that fever doesn't get too high, it's body's way of coping. So sometimes remember reading in book long time ago cuz we had no access to doctors in those early years in northeast Thailand doctor was there's no telephones or anything like that and the doctor was too far away. So remember this little book we had where there is no doctor. It was titled written by doctor who had gone to Central America to volunteer in very remote areas and to help all sorts of people. It gave lots of wonderful information about how to care instead of curing. That became one of those great insights long time later to care for diseases instead of cure curing them. Sometimes the curing them is just the curing them sometimes makes them worse. Disease is part of life as I've often said here that you know how many people have never been sick in their lives. And of course, it's very, very rare to find anyone who's never been sick. Actually, I've never met anyone in my whole life who's never been sick. Sickness is natural. It's part of nature. Fevers are nature. Pandemics in nature. People dying is nature. We don't like it, but we have to expect it. We have to open the door of our heart and bring these things in to go inside of them and let them come inside you. don't mean to go and deliberately get sick but mean to understand the whole situation of what's happening to learn from it to grow from it. know that there's many people get lots of emails still even though you're socially disengaged. It's amazing when you're socially disengaged. think somebody said that in UK they're calling it physically disengaged because socially you're getting more emails than ever. So the last couple of weeks it's almost like socially more engaged and contacting more people, talking more, writing more, contacting people more and think it is just to to share you know your understanding and knowledge in difficult time. There's not time when money really helps. It's not time just when doing much helps except the spiritual path of accepting by going into it and understanding just people's response to these things and sometimes even the response which we have you know and it's wonderful just to see how many medical personnel are literally sacrificing in their lives to help. It's very difficult situation. Just got one email from person who's been on one of my retreats who's doctor in Spain, just frontline worker and saying that it's just so difficult when you have to make decisions who gets ventilator and who gets the paliotative care. In other words, one person's going to die, the other person's going to survive because it's not enough for everybody. You may feel that that's difficult decision, but these are people actually making those decisions. And sometimes understand that their anxiety creates so much tiredness, so much exhaustion where they cannot do their duties properly. if they have means, way of understanding what they're doing, to learning, to growing. And of course, one of the things is we we're such blaming generation of human beings. Always blaming it's this person's fault, that person's fault, the government's fault, something's fault. And lot of time that blame also comes on oneself. It's my fault. should have done it better. all of your life. My understanding of human beings and I've already mentioned going to teach in places like prisons. You're not supposed to you're not supposed to remember the word supposed. You're not supposed to meet the best people in prisons, but there are some amazing human beings in those jails. and even to some of the worst of them. Worst, I'm not sure if that's the best word. That some of the beauty and goodness and wisdom in them is amazing. Sometimes shocks me. So all the human beings in the world always, this is my experience, you may argue with me, always trying to do the best, whatever they feel to be the best. Sometimes they get it terribly wrong. But underneath them, they're trying to make better world deep inside. And if we can try and harness that, the inherent goodness in the human being, the inherent just wanting just to have peace and happiness and joy in this world, realizing that sometimes we can't have it. And sometimes we have to learn how to let go and not always live in myth, myth of beliefs that you just can join this religion and you'll be totally safe or someone will pray for you and that will fix everything. Even some Buddhists, some of the beliefs which I've read just astounded me. Instead of trying to get rid of these problems, to understand them instead to understand them, to realize there's nothing wrong with people dying and other people living. It's not somebody's fault. long time ago, was impressed by the simple wisdom of people who live much closer to nature than people, you know, who live in great cities. And this was that story of old monk who told me that when he was living in this forest by himself in simple hut. mean the huts were really simple in those days. You didn't even you didn't have any council regulations to meet. So if it worked you you lived in it. If it got damaged, you fixed it by yourself. So, it was one of these huts. think it was leaves on the for the roof. Had these huge leaves in the jungles. And so, you could put few of those leaves on with some twigs, not twigs, more like branches or even you could find some bamboo. That was some of the best. And that would actually keep the roof dry or keep underneath the roof dry. It was nice little awning. and you could build such simple hut out of that with what was laying in the forest, not even needing any nails. So he was living in one of these very simple huts in the forest, just nice and peaceful. And he said that one evening there was very heavy storm and he could not go to sleep all night because of fear of dying and cuz all these trees came crashing down as you know you hear even in Bodana Monastery in Serpentine every now and again one of the big trees smashed to the ground. But in the morning when he got up, he saw the damage. If one of those trees had even nicked his hut, he would have gone straight through and probably killed him. Or even worse, if he lived in those jungles in those days, even worse than being killed was being injured. It just meant the death process would last much longer. There was no way of escape. So anyway, this old monk said that in the morning he looked at all of the damage in the forest, but what took his attention, what really captured his mind was not the the not the the trees, not the branches, not the twigs, but the leaves on the forest floor. said that was what really stunned him because he saw living in nature just how life works. Most of the leaves on the forest floor were the old brown leaves lived their life and now they were dead on the forest floor. But amongst all those brown leaves was many yellow leaves. Amongst the yellow leaves was few green leaves. And there was these young green leaves. You know, you know them when you see them. They're just so bright green. They just freshly sprung the night before probably. They'd also been torn off and laid dead on the floor. Why? Why young people? No. what they call these days no underlying health problems. They get corona virus and they die and old people just saw in that news the oldest person in the world right now is 112. He lives in England somewhere. He's probably fine. Why is it the old monk looked up in the trees and he told me he's like laughing when you understand the truth of life and death of nature. It's sort of amusing in sense cuz he knew what to expect when he looked up at the trees. Most of the leaves which were left there were the green leaves. But still, even though many, many old brown leaves and green leaves and yellow leaves were lying dead on the floor, there were still few old brown leaves still on the twigs, still alive, curled up, but just still hanging on there. Even though the storm had ripped up so many leaves younger than them and put them on the floor dead, he understood the nature of life and death. Storms come, pandemics, tsunamis, bushfires, or just other diseases of life. Yes, the old ones are more susceptible, but the young ones die as well. And it's nothing which has gone wrong. There's no one to blame. We all try our best and sometimes we try more than our best and wear ourselves out and become victims ourselves. So in order to be of service to this world, in order to really care, have compassion, that old saying that bird needs two wings. One wing is compassion, the other one is wisdom. To know how to care, know how to deal with the difficulties and problems of life. know about how your body works, what you can do, what you can't do. It's one of the reasons why kept on saying that caring is more important than curing. That's where the power lies in caring. Even if person dies, if you die, you died well because you lived well. The length of your life because Buddhists understand reincarnation, rebirth. The length of your life is not so important. It's quality of your life. If you care rather than trying cure, you're focusing on quality, not results. Which means that you live much more beautiful, peaceful, happy life. And it also means that you understand it's not just about them that you're involved. You're part of this journey. You can't just forget about yourself. Nor can you just focus on yourself. That wonderful little simile when people get married. It's not about you. You It's not about your partner. It's always about us. This world is all about us. Many people will die because of the pandemic. Many people will survive. The majority will survive. What really hope is those who do survive will learn, will grow, will become wiser and compassionate about just what they can do, what they can't do. Life is out of control. We controlled it little bit. But the one thing which is always there is change. Change never rests. Change things altering is something which you can rely upon. It's always been there for me. Always know that things aren't going to be the same today as they were yesterday. And I'm willing to accept that and grow with it and change with it. Stage Brahmali was reminding me about the big bushfire we had in Bodinada Monastery so many years ago, 1991 think it was. And in there the trees were exploding literally because in the hot weather and it was the second hottest day ever recorded in Western Australia at the time. It was the hottest day. Another day two weeks later exceeded that. It was about 46 something over in Perth and in Serpentine where was at the time when the bush fire came. trees exploded because at that temperature all the eucalyptus oil in the leaves evaporates and forms this blue shroud around the trees mixing with the oxygen in the air. The eucalyptus oil evaporated just with oxygen just spark and bang and it was awesome to see. And at the time thought that was the end of Bodhinana Monastery. But now look at it. Bodhinana Monastery has grown so much since then. Many of the huts which were there at the time are still there. Many of the trees still bear the burn marks survived, grown, understood, developed. There's time to let go and we understand that time to let go. It's time of wisdom and kindness. We let go to rest. So the following morning we can start work again. And each of these experiences of our life opportunities where we do really learn. You don't learn Buddhism by reading books or by please excuse me by listening to talks from monk like me. As much as you learn the dharma from the experiences of your life. They may not be pleasant experiences but you learn so much from them. They may not be what you expect, but they are teachings nevertheless by nature always helping us, teaching us, giving us instructions. And the quicker we learn, the more peaceful and free we will feel. So hopefully this little talk which again as usual is never scripted is never planned just thoughts feelings discussions which I've had recently all comes up and hope it's useful for you. So now I'm going to pause and to open up for the questions and the questions coming from not the room here. The room is empty except the couple of people doing the audio visual work. So, have some questions over here and of course I'll be repeating this schedule the next Friday, the Friday afterwards and also tomorrow afternoon, Saturday afternoon, we always have 300 p.m. meditation to about 4:15. usually does the little talk about meditation and then the meditation itself of 40 45 minutes followed by the opportunity to ask questions. And so please tomorrow because again we can't have any people in the hall except the workers. So it means that please you can put your questions down online and I'll try and answer them tomorrow and that will be up till about 4:15 4:30 and this will also occur the week afterwards and the week after that. So something you can rely upon hope. So first of all from Germany doing the meditation. During meditation there are songs popping up in my mind all the time and they're not even my favorite ones. How can deal with this one? So you hear songs coming up in the mind. You can almost actually ask yourself why do those songs come up? They're not your favorite ones but why do those ones? There must be some trigger somewhere. either were the songs which remind you of unpleasant times or pleasant times or whatever but my own story about that I've been among meditating for think over 50 years now so got lots and lots of stories but do remember living in forest monastery in the northeast of Thailand so long ago there was you didn't hear any music you know for years hadn't heard any music and then going down to Bangkok I'm I'm not exaggerating just you know you didn't hear these things in the forest and so many many years afterwards not many not that many years maybe five or six years had to go down to Bangkok to do visas and remember just being in little room and somebody walked past my room with one of these radios and they were playing some pop music and made mistake of really listening to it and it was very delightful to listen to sort of some some song which was probably in the hip parade somewhere but the point is as soon as started listening to it and enjoying it got stuck in my head and couldn't sort of get it out and kept it instead of meditating repeating the music to myself over and over and over and over and over again. It's the songs pop up and get stuck. So long time in couple of days being concerned with this the solution found which worked for me anyway was actually instead of trying to stop the sound which didn't work. It made it come up more and more and more. was trying always discover when you fight something it usually makes it worse. When you try to get rid of it it stays much longer. So instead of trying to get rid of it, decided to really get into it. And especially with the ending, the finale, the last few seconds, instead of whatever it was and then carrying on again, really gave it everything emphasis. When emphasize the endings, then the beginnings never occurred. There's interesting psychology because many people we actually celebrate the beginnings of things, birthdays. We don't celebrate death days, the building of new hall. Yay. We have big opening ceremony. We never have any ceremonies when it gets falling down and needs the repair man to work extra time helping it out. We don't celebrate that, but we celebrate when things begin. And thought, no, no. I'm going to celebrate when the things end by really adding extra emphasis to the endings of things. And that was just with little songs which were were grabbing my mind. When emphasized the ending, the ending became more important than the beginning, which meant the beginning never came up again. interesting little change of perception and it always reminded me of Ajan Charles saying that he preferred ending of things rather than beginning of things. Ending of things means the day has ended, the work is finished. Now you can relax. What happens when people relax? Okay, this is finished. Now what should we begin? Let's do something else. And no, just remember the the endings are more beautiful than the beginnings because they lead to peace, tranquility and rest. Human beings also very tired. So we need to celebrate more endings than beginnings. The next question, what is the best way for someone to get back into spiritual life? It's been long time since I've meditated. Maybe an entire year. Actually, that's not that long. An entire year since you meditated. But the very fact you've listened to the talk here this evening, very fact you've asked that question is the greatest step. Greatest step is to notice what it's like when something important is being ignored. Just to notice that as Ajancha would always remind me that meditation is food for the heart and if you don't eat you get very very hungry very weak you don't have the the resources to deal with the difficult situations of life. So when you look at meditation or the spiritual life is the food for the heart for the mind for the inside world not the outside world you'll find that that is just so crucial. Yes, you eat well, you exercise, you sleep well, but you also meditate well, kind, generous, virtuous, those are also important. That's your spiritual health. And when you put lot of focus on that as well as the external, you're balanced individual. So the best way to get back into spiritual life is keep tuning into this BSWA. That will help get some of your own resources more local. Sit there and just by meditating being able to listen to what's being said and then closing your eyes and following. That's wonderful way. If ever you were learning how to drive car, you'd always have the driving instructor sitting next to you until you could drive by yourself. So having these guided meditations which as my predecessor who used to teach here Ajent Jako used to say the cheapest and the best from the BWA don't have to pay anything for them but doesn't mean they're low quality. They're very high quality meditation teachings and you can listen to them. You can feel them, grow with them, and then it's just like having monk sitting next to you in the car when you're learning how to drive. It's like having the teacher there whenever you need to have some spiritual sustenance. So that's good way of doing it. Guided meditations. And lastly, my friend is too anxious and is in denial of the pandemic. She asked me to agree with this view and say no and she becomes disappointed or depressed. How can continue talking to her without agreeing with her delusional view? It's anxious. Sometimes they're anxious and deny and just denying what is he actually afraid of. Sometimes if that was me, would actually maybe tell her, well darling, you may be right." Don't say she is right, but she may be right. Are you really always so sure? can tell that story? Because the AV person, have you got time to Yes, we got time. the the it's one of my favorite stories. I'm sure the person who asked this question knows this. The the story of the two people who are married walking through the forest when they heard the sound quack quack and straight away that have to change this around. straight away that she said, darling, can you hear that? That's duck." And he said, "No, no, it's not duck. It's chicken." She said, "No, it's duck." He said, "It's chicken." It went quack quack again. There you go. It's chicken. He said, "No, it's duck. No, it's chicken. No, it's duck. No, it's chicken. They're always having fight." And in this story, the wife was the smart one. She was the one who's saying it was duck. He said it's chicken. And it went quack quack. So, she looked at him and said, darling, you know, think you may be right. That is chicken. They went quack- quack again. And then they held hands and had wonderful walk. Thank you, darling. What's more important? Being right or being in harmony, being in love? Sometimes doesn't really matter if it's chicken or duck. But being in harmony, not fighting is more important. And anyway, because I've been telling that story, think Ajentcha told that story to me, you know, so many years ago or 40 years ago now. And since that time, I've been repeating it lot. And of course, people send me all these emails. And there was real chicken. It was poor little chicken when he was born. was orphaned. So, it was adopted by mother duck. This is true. I've got the paper somewhere in sometimes. Adopted by family of ducks. And this little chicken goes quack- quack. It's chicken. That's its species. That's what it is. But it goes quack quack. So, there is I've got evidence there is one chicken in this world at least who goes quack quack. So just because it goes quack quack does not mean it's duck. So but anyway she's in denial of the pandemic to say you may be right darling but you know just cuz I'm anxious about you. I'm anxious don't want you to die or to get sick. So would you mind please darling? You may be right being careful. So sometimes you have to when you're talking with this person sometimes to connect with them first and as you connect with them first and they realize you are hearing them you are respecting their view then little by little they respect your view and together you can walk more closely on path of truth. But harmony first of all that's one amazing way when remember reading an article about people with schizophrenia and one of the most wonderful ways of dealing with that is not telling the person when they see heads human heads alive rolling on the floor this was just what read you don't say you're you know you're nuts that can't be happening. You actually validate their experience. Doesn't matter how unreal it sounds to you, how impossible it sounds. yeah, well that's interesting. How many heads are they? And you find out when they don't feel so challenged, so rejected. So well, respecting is the best word there. Then they they tend to relax more, become more amanable to seeing that that may be bit weird that the experiences of delusions become less strong when you give some validation to them first of all. So people who is in denial of the pandemic just say you may be right but then little by little they trust you and little by little they will come around to the truth anyway how can you continue talking to her with without agreeing with her delusional view don't even call it delusional view maybe different way of looking at life and then little by little you bring people around. Hope that makes sense. So anyway, is there any more questions? Okay. So, hope that worked for you this evening for those people listening online and wish you all happiness and wellbeing.