my first contact with health wellness was my parents my first teacher it was also my father his name was can you imagine the world can you actually is in Tibetan it's the translated words teaching of the Buddha and there's over a hundred volumes and my father read it many many times over I think 30 or 40 times as studying it himself and also he transmitted that reading too many people so that was my fast first teacher and also my first contact with with health because it was also a Tibetan doctor and since I remember I
used to remember I remember many people coming to see him some of them were would just come many of course many of the motor badan would just come because they would accompany and many of them come because they were sick he used to give them medicine he used to actually pick the these medicinal plants and then try them and make them himself and he used to give it to many of them so I know that sometimes like about two o'clock in the morning people would come sometimes I would hear the hopes of a horse and
that somebody had come and wanted him to come and look after somebody check some of their give them some medicines so that was my first nice in contact with medicine health or whatever it is that we can call it actually the Tibetan medicines most of them are quite bitter and but as I used to get given it as a child many many times I used to actually quite like it sometimes I used to open his little messy pouch and then pry a little bit in my hand and just take it so that's how I really
got to know the Wellness part but there's actually another aspect to wellness with my father which is actually something that really touched me retrospectively with my father and my other teachers that really touched me when I think back was that they were of course all of these teachers there was kind of mushy or the original machine they were both very well versed of course in Buddhist philosophy but also in Tibetan medicine and so I remember once somebody came to see my father actually a few times when once it was this lady whose husband had passed
away and she was really really sad and she was crying sobbing and she first came my father talked to her and it looked like he was almost in such pain it was almost as if he was suffering more than her she kept crying crying crying and then she was sitting there like that crying and then suddenly my father had apple on his tail he put it in her hand and that when she looked at it it sort of cut the the flow of her sadness and then she stopped crying and then they were just conversing
very naturally and then she would even started along so that's another aspect of wellness or health that really came became apparent to me especially there was this person who had I think being a monk before and then he had disrobed and then this time this guy came to see my father again he was a very very boisterous loud person and used to come and talk to my father every time he came he used to bring the gossip from town and then talk to him and one day when he came to see my father he said
that and he was crying I me my father asked him what's wrong he said that is what I've had left him for somebody much younger and he was so sad and crying and my father just looked at him for a while and then told him you know this is what you've been training in you've been listening to this all the time now this is time to apply so then again another aspect of wellness many of us when we think when we say how are you I'm well most of the time its associated with physical health
not very much with mental health and even if it is associated with mental health it's more whether we are feeling disturbed or not so in that respect when my teachers used to teach us they used to say that there's many kinds of so many suffering but everyone goes through for example my father used to teach and went into the room to use teach at first the first day was ok but afterwards it used to get a bit boring because every day on top of the subject that they were going to teach they used to remind
us but there are infinite sentient beings not just you you say there is as fast as you think space maybe there's even no dependent whatever you however you think the sky is so vast amount of sentient beings equal to that if not more and you have to say they used to say that every single sentient being wants to be happy there's no one who doesn't want to suffer but no none of us have the freedom to not suffer when we don't want nobody goes for suffering suffering just prizes when rises then none of us are
equipped to relate to it and then they used to say there's few types of few ways to categorize suffering some kind of suffering that all of us call suffering even a cat or a dog would call that suffering if they are being hit if they're hungry that kind of suffering is common to all of us that we can all call suffering but there's other kind of ailments that many of us are going through many of us many many many people think that obtaining a lot of material things will save us from Simon of course the
minimum of agony the material things is necessary for all of us it's helpful but that can't completely get rid of suffering that's actually what we've all experienced now with this world with all its technological advances even in the most affluent places if you look in the medical medicine cabinet there's as many medicines like prozac or whatnot which proves that actually there's different kinds of self and that suffering I was told by my teachers is called suffering because of change because of we do not know how to relate to change change is inevitable but we don't
know how related we do everything to try to freeze things fix things to be fixed so that they don't but that's something we can't change and new they use to say that that's something that's a suffering that you can't buy with material he used to say but everything will change everything that you have everyone that you have even even yourself will change and that suffering we usually don't think of that suffering we try our best to ignore that of course in a Buddhist vocabulary we call it improvements so not being able to relate to that
it's another kind of stuff and of course there's many there are other ways of defining ailments or suffering so the as my these teachers used to always say that every day at beginning they used to keep reminding us of that to the point sometimes I used to just switch off in the beginning because I know they're going to say the same thing and I used to wait for the actual what can you say the subject of the day and then but then later on I really understood why they kept repeating the same thing every time
the beginning of it because I think without that repetition I wouldn't really be able to to remember it I wouldn't be able to relate to properly I suppose is the same as how our parents when we're young keep reminding us that they're careful as they say it over and over again but it's when we needed that we can actually really benefit when they keep saying it to us over and over again like many children some Sun showing some parents even have told me but at a certain age these children are almost ashamed of having their
parents go to school with them cetera so let's suppose you know many of us don't appreciate that aspect so the idea of awareness here when I remember my teachers saying repeating over and over these subject of what suffering is that so many people are suffering so many sentient beings are suffering then in response to that then what can I do I myself don't know how to relate to change when it actually happens change something is inevitable then how do I relate to it now in order to relate to that popping pills doesn't help if I
keep popping pills once I also simply be somebody who I suppose eats more kills than food but suppose I can end up being more of a zombie than anything else now for that then I was told by my teachers that we need to know that in order to be well in order to be healthy we need to also conceived of the health of the mind the mental health and mental health well that requires some some time to contemplate to think so I suppose from a certain point of view being in a place that is quiet
in a place where there's not a constant how can we say bombardment of our senses it actually makes us aware of our mind or are thinking and aware of what's happening in our mind which motors time I think we're trying to not be aware whether it is through the books that we carry nor were they through the mobile phones whatever it is our world is sort of has been catered to not thinking not feeling what our mind it's conscious making it not possible thing for example when we go to a doctor's clinic usually it's filled
with magazines and these days you know there's a magazine there we have to open it and then also on top of food we need our mobile phones all of that because we don't have time to think it's not that we don't have time to think but I think it has something to do with not daring to be with one's own mind the most fundamental thing for us as somebody who's who has a consciousness but at the same time we do our best not cater to it so from that point of view I think that is
the ideal place because somehow the tree's leaves can't quite distracters like a mobile phone nor a magazine or a television nor any of those things so from that point of view I think the quietness comes even the word forest I think is very very conducive to first of all for us to know that we have mind so we have a consciousness and that this consciousness is not something that absolutely needs to be drip fed with entertainment distractions so I think my perception advisor it's but it really provides this environment for for us too I appreciate
it the beginning off mental health health for our mind but of course it's not something we can force on anymore so I think the environment really provides that I think Vana's purpose will be whatever every single person who comes here we will make of it I think that's really inevitable it's going to be bad and I think for some people that purpose might not be met the moment they're here nor even right after they've left it might be met many years afterwards it can be mad at any time usually when we think what is the
purpose of this like giving let us say giving a bicycle to a baby it might sound like it's you know it's silly but should the baby grow it'll be useful for them so therefore I think the purpose of it does not have to be in a very conventional way Travis of it we'll really be what each of us can make of it so I think the first just outer setting of the place being right in the middle of this bustling growing like mr. urban jungle at the same time there is this like a nice a
rural my mother had little haven I think if one can notice that in that contrast is really really have of course if we notice it for example when we're in town when you go to dehradun and drive up from there there's so much noise you almost don't hear anything then you come here it's so silent that is almost too Agnes a lot I think something like that something if it can sort of wake us to what what we can develop into what we can make ourselves develop it into I don't think that I don't quite
believe that each of us are destined to do something and that that's the only thing that we can do I think that regardless of whatever we seem to be destined to we have an important hand in that destiny or whatever that word maybe I'm not sure that we're destiny is something I understand properly or rather that I adhere to a problem for example somebody might come here and want simply to have a break from their busy life but that doesn't have to be that because at first it's just not hearing cars the diesel engines are
the constant I can listen a cacophony of the horns scooters but then if it can actually awaken us not just this outer calm of more of an inner calm it comes for example my teachers needs to tell tell us when they are teaching us to train our mind to meditate they used to give us the example of the sky and the clouds sometimes the ocean and the waves the mountain and the trees in the mountain at first the example of the clouds and the sky was given I didn't really understand very much of course I
could understand what they were saying but I didn't really realize the actual example of it but later on I found it really helpful means they used to say that our mind it's nature is like the space like the sky but that our stressful minds our strong emotions were like the clans blog weather and you look at that you know when we usually think of mental health training the mind usually we think of it as in the same way as we think of material Vince okay you buy this and now you use it we've got a
pill in profit and in that sense where the mind is not quite like that it's like the weather I find it found that example very helpful in that when they told me that my emotions were like the weather like the clouds once i remember with my father because i didn't use to go out very much sometimes I used to really plead with my parents to take me to town and I used a promise that I would not complain because before I you I think a few times a1 that I used to complain I was getting
tired and then they said that they didn't want to carry me so I promised that I would know so one day I said okay next week we could go out and then just on that day which was supposed to be of course I was hoping would be a nice sunny day it rained really torrential rain like it happens in Darjeeling I was really annoyed but of course as it's the weather I can't do much so what do I do there's not much my father also mr. since then there's two options umbrella or wait so we
all decided to wait I really didn't want that we had to wait that was quite an important teaching for me because when he said later but our emotions are like clouds know when I was sitting there looking at the clouds covering the Sun I was so annoying but I can't complain I kind of blame anyone know my father know my mother know my brothers or anyone for a cloud beam similarly when my emotions arise in my mind there's not much I can do it's there that's it so when the clouds came out I just had
to deal with it that's about it deal with it in what way I can deal with it by being angry I can deal with it by being frustrated I can deal with it by thinking because the weather is not good i'm not going to study because of weather is not good i'm not going to eat but none of that works similarly when these emotions that really disturbed us advisers there's not much going to do a part of the fact that these just change emotions clouds rain none of that is prone it changes and it changes
every second so from a certain point of view when my father and my teachers taught told us that our emotions I just like the weather why plant that emotions are not us and they change they change every day every second one moment I may be really happy the next moment i'm really upset moment I see somebody I like the next moment I see somebody a life but I'm afraid of so these are all things that change and that was really important part of understanding inner worlds similarly when we are here in this place how we
relate to it I think for somebody who is just here for the first time who has no idea of not being what is it called online or connected it may be really under upsetting may be really different but at that time we're experiencing in ur plans in a weather changes of course we can be like some people who say that climate change is what it's called is nonsense or we can start really think contemplate and then begin a different kind of ones okay well I was messy
