Mummy, you're nicer after meditation

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• “You're a much better mum when you come home”

  In brief: A tired mother tells her children she will skip the meditation group; her daughter insists she go, because she is a much better mum…

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  Many times when I've been teaching meditation, especially down at Armadale, I don't know why this happens always in Armadale group. In Armadale group, sometimes after the meditation, talking to people afterwards, and very often people say, "You know, this evening, I never wanted to come." "It's Tuesday evening, I've been at work, and I'm tired, and I told my kids I'm not going this evening, and my daughter said, 'Mommy, you must go to meditation.' I said, 'I don't feel like it darling, I'm tired.' 'Mommy, you must go to meditation!' 'No, not this evening.' 'Mommy, go to meditation!!' 'Why darling?' 'Because you're a much nicer mommy when you come back.'

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• You've got such beautiful blue eyes — like my baby Holly

  In brief: Sydney clothing entrepreneur Julie flies at short notice to London to sign a contract. Directors say the managing director is in a filthy…

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  There's a marvelous story from one of my disciples over in Sydney, Julie. I saw her just a few weeks ago, she's doing really well with her business. She was in the clothing business and actually some of her designs, or imports get sold in Myers and David Jones, so she's doing really well. But she once had to go at moment's notice from Sydney all the way to London to close a contract with some big firm over in the UK, hardly any notice at all. So she just got on the first available flight to Heathrow. Completely jet-lagged and tired, she only had time to check into her hotel before she had to go, I don't think she even had a shower, had to go to the boardroom to meet the managing director to sign the contract. When she turned up in the boardroom, the directors told her "you've wasted your journey, the boss is in a filthy mood, no way is he gonna sign any contract at all. We've met him this morning, he so angry, you might as well just go back to your hotel and go back to Sydney straight away." And of course she said “look, I've come all this way at least I'm gonna see the guy” “suit yourself, a waste of time” they said. What she did, while she was waiting, sit in a corner and meditate. She did a loving-kindness meditation. Five minutes later the door opened “Who's she??!! What's she doing??!!” I'm trying to be an angry boss, [laughter] also trying to wake some of you up as well, I think it worked. “What does she want???” And so she came out of her meditation and she told me she didn't know where this came from, but she stood up and looked that managing director in the eye and the words just came out which were “you've got such beautiful blue eyes just like my baby Holly back in Sydney”. And she didn't do that trying to be smart, she did that out of pure kindness because she’s just been meditating on kindness. And the power of that statement was so amazing, that managing director went all soft and mushy and said “Oh, do I? Really? Is that so?” and in five minutes she had a contract signed. The managing director went out and she tried to get back to her hotel but she couldn't, because the other board members crowded around her “teach us how you did that”. [laughter] And so she had to spend the next half an hour or an hour teaching some basic meditation to these board directors who'd just seen what they considered to be a miracle.

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• I don't hit sleepy meditators — I send them to bed

  In brief: An audience mention of a Japanese Soto (captioned Hai/Dogen) monastery that hits sleepy monks prompts him to disagree: prisoners who saw…

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  there's a Zen Monastery It's A Hai Monastery over in Japan it used to founded by this monk doen about 700 almost 800 years ago now 750 years ago and uh that was supposed to um get them um awake stop their sloth and toper I totally disagree with that I remember just when I was teaching uh some of the prisoners I showed them that documentary oh they were really upset said if if you tried that on me A J rob you'd be you'd be minc me you'd be dead don't wor you don't really need to do that I think that too harsh you know sometimes of Buddism they are too harsh like kindness is much better so if you know and many of you who've been meditating Retreats with me if somebody is that sleepy I don't hit them on the back what I do is say if you want to sleep go to bed

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• Tea-plantation monastery — 3 to 4 pm sexy time

  In brief: After five years, young Brahm finds an abandoned mountain monastery in a tea plantation — ideal utopia; meditation gets worse; 'unmonkish'…

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  after five years as a monk i was allowed to go out the monastery to travel around stay by myself visit some other teachers board my experience and i go to this wonderful monastery perfect monastery i was english monk you know how i like my tea this was in the middle of a tea plantation in north of thailand everywhere i looked there were two bushes i had as much tea fresh tea as i wanted beautiful cave and the monastery was up in the mountains it was the right temperature not too hot there's no westerners so like it cooled just the right temperature and even better than that no other monks were in this abandoned monastery because it was too peaceful for them to me that was brilliant nice i can really do some nice meditation here and i didn't need to give any talks the lay people would come just they wanted to feed me that's all nothing else it was like idyllic utopia so i had all the time to meditate you know what happened my meditation got worse and worse and worse more and more crazy these thoughts were coming into my mind first of all there's no ordinary thoughts restless planning whatever and then you started getting what i keep calling unmonkished thoughts and i was only our day when i was 23. so this is 28 28 29. you know still had it long gone now but i thought that was old girl i wonder if she's still available let's stop it and always well you know that i'm still young enough i still got a good degree i can go and teach meditation as a living you know i'd do this and do that stop it because i really wanted to be a monk but every time i tried to watch my breath bring my mind back onto the breath my mind would go off again bring it back to the breath it would go off again and it got worse and worse and worse until i thought i was going mad crazy i just could not stop these unmonkeys thoughts coming up so what i did there's no one to speak to that monastery i was by myself they had a buddha statue i bowed to the buddha statue and asked for help and the inspiration which came up was do a deal you know i was trained in the west okay deals no mr trump the deal was this i would watch my breath for most of the day but i'd set aside one hour every afternoon from 3 p.m to 4 p.m for any thought goes sexy thoughts weird thoughts romance thoughts that was my sexy time as a monk okay i'm being honest with you up front but that's three to four p.m every afternoon if you mind what's the thing about that that's the time the rest of the time you behave i thought that was compromise you know what happened the mind was as crazy as ever i just couldn't stop those thoughts you know you were aware i was mindful my goodness i was mindful but they kept coming back in again i could not stop them and so it came to three o'clock exhausted i went against the wall like no many people do put my feet out okay now any sexy thought you want weird fantasizing deviant whatever okay and this is no exaggeration the next one hour i watched every breath without missing one so easy and that really threw me what is happening there that was data raw data as a scientist how come when i was fighting my mind all these thoughts would keep coming in and as soon as i let go my mind watched every breath without missing one easy relaxed and that taught me a lot mindfulness is not good enough you need a bit of wisdom and kindness

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