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How do you feel being the ordained persons?

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Should we also take ordination?

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Being an ordained person, you feel free,
at peace, oh so happy!

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That's actually true that when I first became a monk,
how long ago, 37 years ago,

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I had nightmares.
This is true.

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I'd wake up in a sweat,

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in my nightmare, this is no exaggeration,
this is how much I really, really wanted to be a monk.

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My nightmare was I was a lay person.

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I thought I wasn't a monk after all.

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And I'd open my eyes and I'd see
my robes next to the bed.

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Ah, I'm a monk! I really am a monk!
[laughter]

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And I'd just go to sleep in this
very peaceful deep sleep.

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And that was about for a week.

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That's how much I really loved being
a monk and I never looked back.

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So that was my nightmare.
I was terrified that I wasn't a monk.

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So happy that I was a monk.
So it's a great thing to be!

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So that's how I feel being
an ordained person.

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I don't know why many of you don't do it.

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Actually there's a problem now because
we've got too many people wanting to become monks.

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So even just this evening, one Sri Lankan person,
a monk, wanted to come and visit for

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the rains, had to tell the secretary, we've got no space.

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There's another young man who wanted
to become a monk, can't do it.

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There's now too many people on the waiting list.

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So should you also take ordination?

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Yeah, take ordination but please build some
more huts for the nuns and the monks first of all.

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[laughter]
So we've got a place to stay.

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So it really is a great thing to do.

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I don't know, maybe because of the
global financial crisis that people are bankrupt

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[laughter] they're becoming monks to
escape the tax man and everybody else.

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I don't know.

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But anyway, that's how I feel about being ordained.

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So who amongst the Bhikkhunis
are going to answer the question?

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How do you feel?
Okay, Bhikkhuni Satyamma.

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How do you feel about being..?

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Bhikkhuni Satima: I feel great.

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Ajahn Brahm: Very good, no, come on,
you've got to do it on the...

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Here we go.

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This is Bhikkhuni Satima here,
how she feels being a Bhikkhuni.

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Bhikkhuni Satima: I feel great, I felt the same
too when I became a Bhikkhuni.

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That was, I think I was radiating with joy
so much that I was at the airport and the

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flight attendant came up to me and says,
Venerable, you can board the plane first.

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So that was the first time that something like that happened too.

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Ajahn Brahm: Very good.

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Bhikkhuni Satima: So that was...

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Ajahn Brahm: One of the privileges you get.

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Bhikkhuni Satima: Privileges, yes.
[Laughter]

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Another Bhikkhuni: I feel similarly,

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I can't say that, you know,
it's all peace and joy all the time.

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I brought my defilements with me.

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But I just,
this is absolutely how I want to live.

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Ajahn Brahm: How long have you been a Bhikkhuni now?

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Bhikkhuni: Since 2003.

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Ajahn Brahm: Wow, that's eight, nine years.

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Bhikkhuni: Something like that.

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Ajahn Brahm: Very good.

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Bhikkhuni: But it's just a wonderful thing.

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I'm just incredibly, it goes beyond grateful.

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I'm astounded that I get to do this.

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Ajahn Brahm: Very good.

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Bhikkhuni Nirodha,
want to have a go?

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Bhikkhuni: I just want to add
whether anyone else should do it.

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It takes huge commitment.

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I think there's a phase in people's practice
as lay people that they have kind of

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this idea, maybe they'd like to ordain.
I think it's a beautiful phase.

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But it takes huge commitment.

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Ajahn Brahm: Just like a marriage,
but it's much more fun than being married.

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[laughter]
Bhikkhuni: Precisely.

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Bhikkhuni Nirodha: I can't imagine doing
anything else or being anything else.

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So just a tremendous sense of gratitude
to the Buddha and to everybody else who helped

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to bring these ordinations about.

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So it's not only just a Bhikkhuni ordination.

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First you ordain as a Samaneri, as an Anagarika,
then as a Samaneri, then as a Bhikkhuni.

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So for me it's the culmination
of many aspirations.

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And I wish everybody else
would be able to do it.

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And I can't think of anything else,
what I would like to do right now.

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Thank you very much.

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Ajahn Brahm: Are you going to ordain?
[far from mic]

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Attendant: I hope so.
[laughter]

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Ajahn Brahm: Are you going to ordain?

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Attendant: I would like to, I'd encourage it.

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Ajahn Brahm: Very good, very good.
[laughter]

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I knew that answer because
he's coming to monastery.

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So it's very, very good.

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And one of the great benefits of being a monk

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is because we don't have kids, we lessen the

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population of the world, so it means
we're helping with stopping climate change.

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The biggest problem with climate change is
too big population,

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so I really want sort-of to have
the laws in Australia and other countries

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that every other man, 50% of men
have to become monks for life [laughter]

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and 50% of the girls have to become
nuns and that way the population will

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go down, no climate change,
we'll save the world [laughter]

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[Ajahn chuckles] What are you laughing at?
That's actually serious.

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No, anyway, could you please...