And this particular story is an anecdote when one of our monks, when I was too busy doing all these other things, we used to go teaching in prisons, but another monk started teaching in prison. When he started teaching in prison, this was in Casuarina Prison, at one of the top-security jails. After a while the prisoners there said "Can you stay back a bit longer, we want to sort of talk to you, just find out about you." So he stayed back a little bit longer, they gave him a cup of tea and some chocolate now if you give a monk a cup of tea and chocolate, they're gonna stay forever, so he stayed behind for a bit of tea and chocolate. They started asking him questions about life in a Buddhist monastery in the West. What do you guys do? Have you ever wondered what we do in our monastery? So he said, "Okay, the day in the life of a monk, we get up at four o'clock in the morning." And just at that the prisoners were aghast. "Four o'clock in the morning! Even in prison, you don't have to get up at that time." And the monk he did actually make a qualification, he said, "Actually it's voluntary, it's optional, getting up at four o'clock in the morning," which is true, it's optional, you can always get up earlier, if you want to, that's the option. "And then what do you do?," and he told them, "We meditate." They said, "Can't you just watch the end of the late night movie?" He said, "No, we don't have TVs." "You don't have TVs in the monastery, we have TVs in our cells in prison, that's terrible. So what you do then, you have your breakfast?" We do have a breakfast at the monastery, we usually have just one cup of cereal in it and that's about it, or you know someone, you know has his noodles, but it's only one cup, that's all. They said, "Wow, you know in Casuarina Jail we can have bacon, we have pancakes, we can have cereal, you have everything there, whatever you want." And they said, "Why don't you do that in the monastery?" "No, no, we only have a bit of cereal and that's it." "And then what do you do in the morning?" "And then we work hard at Bodhinyana Monastery." We do these amazing chores, you know building, and even I do that, and if you go down to the retreat centre, we're doing this ramp and I was spending two days cutting the bricks, it was a huge angle grinder, really heavy work, getting myself all dusty. I like some joining in when there's any concrete work. Tell the story once with doing concrete work, when you do concrete work, even as a monk, you get it all splashed all over you. So you know just boys being boys, I'm still a boy you know, still just maybe a bit old to be a boy, but I still like getting myself all dirty. So I got all this concrete on top of me, as I was walking back to my hut to have a shower, I passed a Sri Lankan woman and she was in this really expensive sari, she was visiting the monastery. She came up to me and I'll never forget this, she said, "Uh... I've come to see the abbot Ajahn Brahm." I thought very quickly and I said, "Madam, if you go to the hall over there he'll probably be there in about fifteen minutes." That was enough time for me to go to my room, get a shower and get changed into some clean robes. So I went up to the hall, and there she was waiting, and I said, "Oh! I'm Ajahn Brahm," you know she never recognized me. That's how dirty I was. I gave her a nice talk, you know about the monastery and about Buddhism, what we're doing here and she was really impressed, so just before she left she said, "You know you've got a really good monastery, are you're a really good monk, but if you don't mind me saying this, I saw this really dirty monk when I came here and I think you should do something about that." I said, "I'll talk to him later, Ma'am". Which I did. So that's actually how hard we work, and when the prisoners heard this, again they were really surprised, 'cause yeah, in prison you have to do jobs, but they take it real easy in those jails in Australia. They said, "They'll never get us to work that hard." They said "And then you have your lunch?" Yeah, we have our lunch, many of you have been to our monastery, we eat it out of a bowl, everything goes in one bowl. Sometimes it's true you do get curry on spaghetti. No sorry, I got that wrong, you got custard on spaghetti. That's right, you ever had custard on spaghetti? Why do you say "yuck" for, you've never eaten it, but actually you're right, it is gross. Sometimes you have custard on spaghetti. I've had ice cream on curry, chocolate ice cream, yeah, that's also yucky. 'Cause you know, you put it in your bowl, and for me because I'm the senior monk I put it in the bowl myself and I give it to somebody to take up, 'cause that's their duty. By the time, they're not really careful, they just shake it all over the place, you know I put it in the right position when I start, by the time it gets up there it's all over the place, but that's life. And they were saying that even in prison, even when you go to solitary, you get a tray the custard is here, the spaghetti is over there, it's separate compartments. "Don't you have compartments in your bowl?" Have a look at our bowls, we don't have separate compartments, it goes all over the place. They said, "That's disgusting!" "So what you do in the afternoons?" He said, "We meditate." "Can't you sort of play some music, or sort of play a game of footie or something." "No, we're not allowed to play footie, we just meditate all afternoon." They said, "Don't you get bored?" "No, that's what we're supposed to do." "So I suppose you hangout for dinner?" "Dinner? We don't have dinner in our monasteries, we just eat in the morning time, there's no dinner." They said, "Well, even in prison they give you something to eat in the evening and you have snacks throughout the day, whatever you want. So what do you do in the evening then? You know, can you play cards play monopoly or something, pass the time?" He said "No, we can't do that." "Don't tell us" they said, You meditate, don't you?" "Yeah, of course we do." "Oh God, that must be terrible. Then what time do you go to bed?" And the monk said, "Bed? Bed?... we don't have beds, I sleep on the floor." They were absolutely disgusted. Even in prison they put you in that little cot with the mattress on top, not in our monastery, I sleep on the floor. Anyway, the prisoners were actually really surprised. They were really surprised, but not only surprised, they felt sorry for this monk who had been visiting them, and this is true story, one of them was so upset that this man who they got to like was living in such a hard situation, one of them blurted out, "That's terrible in your monastery, why don't you come in here and stay with us instead?" And they had a point, it is actually much more comfortable in any prison in Western Australia than in Bodhinyana Monastery, or even in Dhammasara Nun's Monastery. So why is it that people are trying to get out of jail, and they're trying to break into our monastery, to stay there, waiting lists. That got me thinking, what's the difference between our monastery and the prison? Prison is actually more comfortable, the monastery is much harsher. What's the difference? The only difference is in a monastery people want to be there. In a prison, doesn't matter how comfortable it is, people don't want to be there, that's the only difference.