How heavy is the glass?

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• The social worker's solutions that popped up

  In brief: A senior social worker with heavy responsibilities arrives at a nine-day retreat in North Perth at 8:30 p.m., straight from the office…

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  A classic case is one of the old members here who died a year ago. She came on this meditation retreat which I gave a couple of years ago. And she was a very high profile social worker, senior social worker, had lots of responsibilities. So the retreat which we give, the nine day retreats, they usually start at about seven o’clock. I don’t think she turned up till about eight thirty. Because she was working at her office, getting all of the papers and stuff done and she couldn’t leave it. I don’t think she had any dinner. She came straight from her office to the retreat center in North Perth. Tired, but you know, obviously I told her to rest for a couple of days before she can really got into the meditation. But she told me at the interview a few days later that she had come to the retreat straight from the office finishing very late, with all of these problems, big problems. But she was wise enough, she heard those teachings many times before. When she came to the retreat center, she completely forgot about them for two or three days. She done all of her research, she got all of the information, she just hadn’t processed them. And just three days, she was meditating there quite quietly, and her mind was very peaceful and these solutions started popping up. And she said when she basically listened to the solutions in her mind, she didn’t know where they came from, they just came up, popped up, she said: “Wow, these are really good solutions!” And she was so impressed with these solutions which came up automatically, she told me afterwards. She said: “As soon as I go back home, I’m going to implement these things. These are innovative I can see just how they are gonna work.” But she also said there’s no way . she could have thought of those solutions It was a decision making which arrived by putting in all of the information and waiting, and waiting for the brain, the mind, to process these things and for the decision to come up.

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• The young doctor who wanted to quit

  In brief: A first-year intern loses his first patient, a young mother, and must tell her husband that his wife is dead and his kids have no mother.…

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  The doctor, he’s not here this evening, he lost his first patient first year as a doctor, as an intern, came to see me, wanted to resign, “I don’t want to be a doctor anymore.” Why? He said, “Cos I had to tell, I had to tell this girl’s widow, this young man, the one he loved the most in his life, is dead. And your kids have got no mother.” And you could see just the pain in this poor young man’s face. He’d just come back from the hospital, I don’t know whether it’s Royal Perth or Charlies Gairdner’s, just having told, you know, this poor guy, you know that he lost his wife, kids have no mom, and that just hurt him so much. Can you imagine having to do that? He said, “I can’t do this anymore, I have to just give in. I can’t be a doctor. Cos that’s going to happen again and I just can’t face having to be the one to tell somebody the incredibly painful news.” That’s when I told him and said, “You’ve misunderstood what being a doctor is all about. If you think that being a doctor is curing all your patients, you are going to fail so many times in your life. You’re going to go through this so many times. The reason is because you haven’t understood what the role of a doctor is. The role of a doctor is not to cure, is to care. To care for your patients, not to cure them.” You know what I mean, if curing is the number one thing you're supposed to do, some of the interventions which happen in hospitals today – cure at all costs, forget about caring for the patients. If it hurts, it’s going to prolong their life unnecessarily, that’s curing. Caring is a totally different agenda. If it’s caring, a lot of times, I have to care for this person, it’s time to let them go. No more interventions. The quality of their moment is more important than keeping them alive. And I said, “If your job as a doctor is to care for people, you will never have to fail. You can always care for people, you can’t always cure them. Therefore you can always be a successful doctor. You will lose many of your patients. They will die. But you will be able to go to their widow, to their family and say – they were cared for. They were cared for to the max, and the family, yeah they will be sad. They’ll realise everything was done and your loved one died, being loved and cared for.

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• Anita Moorjani: “I'm cured”

  In brief: In Hong Kong, Anita Moorjani, riddled with cancers and expected to die, dies on the operating table. She sees and hears everything said…

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  her experience while she was in hong kong she was uh indian but working in hong kong and brian joseph um walker was the her gp but she had so many cancers inside of her and all of those cancers which she had were literally killing her she had many operations and this operation was you know they think last chance for her they thought she was going to go and she did die on the operating table and when she died on the operating table she obviously came back again and then she told the story what it was like being first of all being able to see and hear everything which was being said the doctors confirmed it how the heck do you know that you were unconscious at the time and not only being able to see and hear everything but then floating out of her body and to this big beautiful light and those of you who heard me teach the deep meditation on retreats we call those nimiters in meditation beautiful lights what it is is a manifestation of your mind that's one thing which i disagreed with her on not sort of god who might feel like that but it's actually your own mind and when it's freed from the five senses it's very powerful and extremely blissful like being in the middle of pure love or pure bliss those meditation experiences which i said earlier they're such powerful happiness and and joys literally is blissing now very deeply and then when she came out afterwards she came out afterwards she didn't know how long she was in there she came with what we called in buddhism insight understanding but her main concern at the time obviously was her health her sicknesses her cancers and when she came out and became conscious again to the surprise of the doctors and they thought she would have died and then the first thing she said to the doctors is i'm cured and the doctors thought she was just being hallucinating because you know she had big tumours inside of her what do you mean you're cured and that's when afterwards she mentioned because i've understood the cause of my cancers and the cause of the cancers was the emotional stress of trying to live up to other people's expectations all the time like you your partner in life your children's expectation of you as a mother as a father as a grandparent your parents expectations of you your boss's ex expectations of you and more powerful your own expectations of you what do you think you should be doing how do you really feel that inner stress inside trying to live up to some standard and you don't know where those standards are from and when she saw that she was success a very successful woman when she saw that that was what was causing the stress which manifested in the tumors in her body she understood that was the reason why she had the cancer now she saw that and could understand the main cause of the cancers then she said i'm not going to try and live up to other people's expectations anymore i'm going to relax and just be me and you know that as soon as you if any of you ever do that you find out the you you end up being is much much much better than the you that you try to be all of that force you're not working well enough you're not good enough you're not trying hard enough you're not successful enough you could do more you could do better that is a terrible burden on your body which means that you work too hard injury don't work much at all you're still just trying too hard you still have that stress inside of your body and mind and she said that was what's causing my cancer

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• The executive who slept for three days

  In brief: On a retreat in Sydney many years ago, an executive arrived at 11:30 at night after tying up loose ends at work. Told in her first…

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  the classic story many many years ago teaching a retreat in Sydney and an executive you know from some big company in Sydney she arrived really late about 11:30 at night because you had to try and tie up all the Loose Ends before she could arrive at The Retreat so she arrived in the middle of the night so she missed the evening talk and when I sort of uh she asked for quick interview in the morning when I told her this that most people are tired so to practice your kindness and take as much sleep as you want she really took that advice on board she went straight back to bed got up for lunch after lunch went to sleep again she got up in the morning just before breakfast after breakfast went to bed got up for lunch went to bed again afterwards she said for the first two or three days she slept and slept and slept she was just catching up after 3 days she had hardly done any meditation at all but you felt so good as you do do when you really caught up on your sleep I really feel got energy now I feel healthy and then the next three days you know she started to get into her meditation and she caught up with everybody else so by the sixth day she was on a par with all the other people and of course the last few days she just took off she was one of the star meditators really got some really deep meditation and I used her courage and wisdom as an example for all others

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