The minister who read their minds

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• Why the German worked harder in Australia

  In brief: A society member who migrated from West Germany before reunification is told by Australian workmates that Germans have a strong economy…

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  many years ago when I first came there's one of the members he just migrated from West Germany this was before unification at that time I think the West German economy was the best in the world beating Japan China United states there's a very very strong economy and he told me that when he when he came and worked here in Western Australia his work friends sort of said to him oh you Germans you got such a good economy because you really know how to work hard no that's not right I work much harder here in Australia than I ever worked in Germany and I asked him well why was your economy so strong he said because when I was working in Germany family. This was before unification. He said we would work cooperatively here in Australia. He said we work like this competing against each other in the same office in the same company. He said that was why we had to work so hard to be competitive to be productive. Sorry when you work together you have cooperation instead of competition you get far more success far more productivity and also you don't have this jealousy business

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• Five fingers arguing who is most important

  In brief: Fable: five fingers argue supremacy — mirror of egos asking who matters most in the Buddhist society.

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  five fingers. Once upon a time there were five fingers and they were arguing which finger is the most important. You know that human beings like to do this, who's the most important? Who's the most important person in our Buddhist society? Is it the head monk, the head nun? Is it the committee? Who's the most important person in this Buddhist society

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• The jealous husband's astral visits

  In brief: A Burmese man working on air-conditioning contracts in Darwin, deeply in love with — and very jealous of — his English wife in Perth,…

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  There was this uh Burmese gentleman many many years ago and he told me just how he had this job in air conditioning um and you know just uh doing contracts. He had a job in Darwin. So he was in Darwin and his English wife was in Canning Canington somewhere and you know he was you know he really loved his wife. He's a very good man. was incredibly jealous. So, every [laughter] now and again he was over in Darwin and he'd come and visit his wife, you know, his his astral body just to check up that she wasn't misbehaving and she didn't have no none of those powers or anything, but she would know because he was the husband. He would know, okay, it's I can't say it. Say it was Simon. That wasn't his name. He had another name, but I don't want to give the game away who this was. Oh, he said, "Simon, look, I'm faithful to you. Go back to Darwin and go back to work." And it was true, you know, he sort of tell her afterwards that he was actually visiting just to check it out that she was okay.

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• The dog, the lion and the monkey

  In brief: A dog wanders too far into an African forest and a lion decides to eat him. The dog finds some bones, sits with his back to the lion and,…

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  once upon a time there was a dog who went for a walk in the forest in Africa and he walked a bit too far because a lion saw him and the lion thought that dog will make a good dinner and a dog heard that. How could a dog escape from a lion? But this dog, he must have listened to some of the the uh YouTube talks from here because he was a very very smart dog. I'm sure he was a Buddhist. So what he did, he managed to find some bones and he sat in front of the bones with his back towards the lion totally unafraid. And as the lion was about to pounce, the dog licked his lips and said, "M, what a delicious meal. These lions are very, very tasty. I wonder when I can get my next lion to eat. And the lion heard that, thought, "My goodness, that must be a really vicious dog. He's eaten another lion. I'm not going to be his dinner." And so the lion turned around and ran away. But there was a monkey and that monkey saw that that conversation and he said, "I'm not going to let the dog get away with tricking this lion." So he went up to the line and said, "You've been tricked. you're a fool. You know, this dog, you know, can't eat lions. You know, he just said this to scare you away. And so the lion got very upset and said, "I'm going to go and eat that dog." And the monkey said, "I can't come with you to watch." So the monkey jumped on the lion's back and the lion went straight towards the dog and the dog saw them coming. So he went in front of the pile of bones again with his back towards the lion and the monkey on the back. And as they came close, the dog licked his lips again and he said, "Where's that damn monkey? He promised he'd bring me another lion.

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