Would love to show you photos inside the Convention Centre but they weren’t allowed to be used for public viewing, sorry.
Day one of three and the Dalai Lama sat crossed legged high on his golden throne, bare feet hidden underneath his robes, a red visor shading his eyes, the first session had begun. The Melbourne long weekend that followed would bring sessions on compassion, wisdom, patience, generosity, zeal, ethics and meditative concentration.
Fog on way to the venue
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His Holiness arrived on stage with no fanfare, no Australia Idol-esk…. ‘and now for the man you’ve been waiting for…’. Instead it was just a quiet walk on, and an acknowledgement of the Buddha graphic of the day. He was then helped off with his thongs and aided up six steps to the cushioned throne.
The day clears
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As the morning continued our brains, and notebooks began groaning under the burden of deep thought.
We were also cognizant of the need for monks to eat their main meal by midday. With no clock in sight some of us resorted to peaking at our muted mobile phones. Time counted down leaving mere minutes to midday and those of us still married to time, began to get very twitchy. Where was a large clock when you needed it?
Any moment I expected the MasterChef bomb graphic to shatter the Buddha backdrop and for George Calombaris to bounce on stage declaring……
The chair
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‘Times up, step away from the throne’, followed by ‘look we’ve loved having you here, you’ve added so much to the day, but I’m sorry to say your journey has come to an end, there will be no mou…ssa….ka until tomorrow, sorry’. Then perhaps challenging Oprah he’d point to the thirty monks seated on either side of His Holiness, adding ‘no moussaka for you, no moussaka for you’.
Thankfully we soon heard the quiet refrain…..‘that’s it’…..the Dalai Lamas down to earth way of signaling the end of the session. You could almost hear the clock-watchers in the audience finally exhaling. Before leaving he then turned to the monks seated on his left hand side and said ‘MasterChef’.
Confused we all turned to the stranger next to us asking, ‘did he just say MasterChef?’ While we had become accustomed to His Holiness’s broken English, there were still occasions when he had to refer to the interpreter to get the point across. Perhaps we’d heard wrong.
‘MasterChef, isn’t it?’ he enquired beaming at the thirty monks on his right hand side. The monks beamed back in agreement, however I couldn’t be sure whether this was an indication of His Holiness being correct, or just politeness.
Confusion prevailed amongst the audience.
Unsure we all stood in silence watching a reversal of the mornings proceedings, as His Holiness was assisted down the steps, and thongs replaced before he disappeared behind the crimson curtains.
Outside the auditorium talk in the lunch queue began about the teachings, but soon moved to whether we’d heard correctly. Self doubt meant most of us thought we’d simply misheard, besides we conceded, even if he had said MasterChef, he wouldn’t have been able to get to the Channel Ten studios in time.
On his return for the afternoon session there was no mention of lunch, nor MasterChef, it was simply back up the stairs and onto discussing more weighty issues than sweaty onions and sauce consistency.
Now having seen last weeks episode where it was revealed that the MasterChef contestants were indeed lying in wait to serve His Holiness lunch, I was left pondering one thing..…..
When life throws you into a state of confusion, and leads you down the road of self-doubt, don’t stress, relax its all part of a larger reality (television).