Dear Thay, dear Sangha. I just want to give some background before I ask my question. My father passed away a couple of years ago. My father passed away about two and a half years ago now, and it was due to prostate cancer, which metastasized into his bones. And he suffered a lot because of that, from the pain in his body, mental unclarity, so it was very hard for me to communicate with him in his later days.

And it was very peaceful for me to let him go, but now I see that it gets harder and harder for me to try to connect with his energy and harder for me to feel grief and feel emotion towards that. So I guess my question is, how can I practice to have a connection with him even though he's passed in this life? And I also have a side question if you have a minute to answer. I'm seriously considering ordaining as a monk, so I was wondering what is the cause of one to do that in a greater sense, and if you can just a little bit expand on what that process is. Thank you.

Dear Thay, dear Sangha. Our friend shared that his father passed away two years ago from a cancer, and towards the end of his illness, that was a very painful time for his father. At the time of his father's passing, he felt a certain peace. But as time goes on, he is facing challenges to connect with his father's energy in himself. He would like to know how to really open his heart to be in touch with that grief and the emotion that is still there, and how to connect to his father's energy within himself.

The second part of his question is about how he can ordain as a monk. He is interested to ordain as a monk. How could he do that?

Our father is not only outside of us, but he is inside of us. He always continues in us. He is still available. In every cell of our body, we have our father, our mother, and our ancestors. So it is possible for us to converse, to talk to our father, now and here.

And I do that all the time. I share with him my practice, and I feel that my father is always alive with me. And as I make progress on the path of practice, my father does at the same time. And very often I invite him to walk with me and breathe with me. So we are in harmony. And what he could not do during his lifetime, I try to do it for him. Now there is more peace, happiness, joy, and freedom.

The happiness and the suffering of father are still in us. Our suffering carries within itself the suffering of our father. So if we embrace the suffering in us tenderly and listen to it, then we are embracing the pain of our father and listen to the suffering of our father. And communication is always possible because our father and son, father and daughter always inter-are.

You cannot be there without your father. Your father cannot be there without you. So you are the continuation of your father. You are your father.

And we know that the pain, the suffering can be useful. It helps us to recognize the peace, the happiness that may be available here and now. Against the background of suffering, happiness and peace stand out very clearly. That is why suffering is helpful. And we can talk about the goodness of suffering.

So if father has suffered, son has suffered, and that is good also, because we have some mud in order to grow lotus flowers. Because no happiness can be without suffering. The Buddha experiences happiness, but he knows how to suffer.

To practice as a monk is the easiest way, according to our experiences. To practice as a layperson is more difficult. And to be a monk, practicing among other monks, is so easy. And if you inquire about that, you will know what to do in order to be accepted as an aspirant, and how long it would take to be ordained as a novice, and how much effort you should make in order to be ordained as a bhikṣu, fully ordained monk.

And as a monastic, we can have a lot of chance to serve people. And serving people, helping them to suffer less, brings us a lot of joy. You know that we are in shortage of monks and nuns in Europe. Every country in Europe wants to have one retreat a year. And the number of monks and nuns, Dharma teachers, are very limited.

We cannot afford to offer every country in Europe one retreat per year. There are only a few countries that got a yearly retreat. That is France, and Germany, and the Netherlands. Italy and other countries, every two years. And there are many countries in Asia and North America. And that is why if you don't have anything exciting to do outside, join us. As soon as you become a monastic, you can begin to serve already by the way of walking, breathing, smiling. You can already help people. Because you train as a monk in order to do that. To live in peace, in joy, and to express peace and joy with every step, with every breath. And you don't have to graduate in order to serve.

You continue to study Buddhism and train in the practice. And every year you have a winter retreat, ninety days to deepen your practice. You continue to learn every day. And you have the chance to help your elder brothers and sisters in a monastic community to organize days of mindfulness, retreats on mindfulness, and you can learn a lot from your big brothers and sisters in doing so, and you become a teacher.

We have recently opened another door, a five-year program of monastic training and service. If you are thirty-five or younger, you can sign up for that program and become a monastic for five years. Three years as a novice and two years as a fully ordained monk. And if you like it, you can continue for all your life.

And you can also return to lay life and continue to practice, and one or two years after you can become a lay Dharma teacher and work together with monastic Dharma teachers. We need thousands of monastics more in order to offer retreats and days of mindfulness to many countries.

Young people from Asian countries becoming monastics, they have to learn English. Because if you become a Dharma teacher, you should be able to conduct a retreat everywhere in the world. But here you don't have to learn English. So it's a big advantage. So please, those of you who think that monastic life can bring you a lot of joy and happiness, you lead a very meaningful life, please reflect on it.

[One sound of the bell.]