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So, the topic of "waiting":

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I grew up, educated in California as an Architect

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studied, wanted to be good and make a name for myself.

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...to have a house, two car garage, the American Dream.

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My mother and father sacrificed a lot for their four children; my two brothers and my sister.

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They escaped with nothing. They had to leave everything.

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I remember giving away my toys, "Why am I giving away my toys?"

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And I remember my dad giving away his Honda (car)...

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and slowly giving away our furniture.

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We had to do it secretly so the neighborhoods don't know that we are going to escape one night, on a boat.

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We left everything to come here.

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I remember there was a lot of pressure from my mom, especially to be successful.

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That's a dream for all mothers and fathers.

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As I grew up, I saw there was a lot of effort to achieve a diploma, to become this and that, awards, certificates.

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You get trained to always be somebody.

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And then you become an Architect.

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You walk in, you look and see whose office is closer to whose, and whose got the better project.

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That's the system that I grew up in. I was stuck in that.

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Growing up, I had difficulties with my father. He struggled a lot coming here, losing everything.

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So for me, I had a lot of anger issues with my father.

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This is something the practice helped me with...

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to learn to come back and look at ourselves, to confront the suffering that I was having as a young man.

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It helped me become a little happier.

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The practice helped me look at my father and my relationship with him,

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to begin to understand him more

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and to begin to understand my own suffering.

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This was the benefit of sitting, silencing the mind, calming ...

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and having time to look deeply at my emotions,

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where I'm at and the goals that I'm setting for myself.

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This helped me to understand more of what true happiness was.

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Once I was able to touch the root of my suffering.

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I was also able to touch the things that I am passing by because of some future promise

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to become this, or that... always wanting more.

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It's a kind of suffering, always thinking that you're lacking.

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This is something that is underneath our culture.

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With the practice, I think it can help all of us to really recognize that

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"Wow, I'm still alive ...

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"My eyes, my body is in good condition. I'm healthy enough ...

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"My tooth ache," my teacher shared with us about the toothache. Sorry, back to hygiene -

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You know, this moment is a non-toothache moment.

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It's kind of silly, what does that mean?

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But all you need to do is reflect.

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Remember that tooth in the back. Remember when it was aching...

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when your gum was inflamed.

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Just touching that, even though it was not a great suffering, it was suffering.

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It reminds us like, "aah, wonderful. I don't have a toothache now."

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This is a practice. Just stopping to recognize the breath;

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recognizing a mind that is clear.

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It's a training to actually be present to this moment, to this present moment,

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to recognize that the conditions are so many ...

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I remember our teacher gave us homework to write down all the wonderful conditions,

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the happy moments in your life now. It's a wonderful exercise.

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Your loved ones, your brothers, your sisters.

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Sometimes we're there with our loved one, but we're not present.

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My brother made us some tea before coming here, we were hanging out at somebody's place.

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He brought out his tea set and made three of us tea.

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I recognized, "Wow, we haven't had tea for awhile"

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We sat there and drank tea together.

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And to recognize that my younger brother is so sweet.

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He brought his tea material, we had just woken up from a nap

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and the first thing he does is make us tea.

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I was reading a book and I closed it

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and we are looking at each other drinking tea.

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That sounds like, "What does that have to do with my happiness, with my career?"

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But that moment actually is the building block for the rest of your life, you're living!

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Sometimes we put a lot of goals and a lot of things that we want

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but actually when we get there, we want more.

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To give you an example, you have a tea cup,

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you drink your tea and you want to do the next thing,

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when you get to the next thing, you want to do ... so on.

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And this is the way we've been trained.

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This is where we're at as a culture.

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When I say we all will become refugees... I think in my lifetime, we will see that we will all become refugees.

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It's a different thing, it's not about one nation or another,

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but we will all need a place where we can escape all that

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online and wi-fi and... this stuff is everywhere now.

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We have no time to be with ourselves, to be present for our body,

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to be present with the moment.

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And to enjoy life as it is in the "now."

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To be present with our loved one and to be present with nature.

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This is where we're heading. Besides the climate change, there is something happening to our culture.

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We're traveling around the world and we're escalating faster and faster.

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I hope you continue to train, find a refuge within; a refugee camp within.

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We all will need that.

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When you have strong emotions, when you need a break, or feel out of touch with what you need to do

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...come back.

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Everything you need, everything you have is there.

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It's only from that place that we can help change where we're at as a society, as a human on this planet.

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If you keep struggling and you don't have this refuge, then it will be difficult.

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My sister will continue on this theme for us ...