The Daryl Llama

Wisdom. Compassion. Utes. I've got the t-shirt, I've seen the Daryl Llama. Not many people realise this but Australia has two spiritual centres. One of course is Ulhuru, and the other is Bluey's Ute World in Bayswater, Melbourne. Think about it: it's got everything - dogs, Utes, it's named after a suburb in London and it's nowhere near a bay or water. How Australian can you get?

 So we gathered there to meet and greet the spiritual leader we all know as the Daryl Llama, true claimant to the Lucerne Throne of Australian Farming Buddhism since he was found at the age of three piloting a Combine Harvester while rolling a cigarette and collecting a six-pack for his father from the local drive-thru bottle-shop. He was spotted by the three wise persons of Australian Farming Buddhism - Kev, Trev, and Bev who immediately recognised our next spiritual leader and handed over the Celestial Thongs of Beautness to the young lad.

We've all read his books "Sheep are great & You really shouldn't eat them" , "Cows are Just Fantastic & You shouldn't eat them either" and the somewhat controversial "Oh well if you really must, try the baby back ribs with a pear and Armagnac sauce" .... (in a private interview he admitted to me that even a totally spiritual dude such as himself can get a bit swept up in the whole MasterChef madness and that looking back he should have stuck with his original concept "The Tibetan Book of the Tractor")

I had a chance to ask him what he thought of his Tibetan counterpart, the Dalai Llama & he told me "Top bloke. Dunno about the dress, but". He's too polite and all round just, like, you know ..serene .. to say so but I understand the Daryl, in his meetings with the Dalai, has found it frustrating he's been unable to get the Dalai to engage on any meaningful level with  religious concepts like shearing, hay-baling, or lager. Still.

The Daryl of course teaches (and lives) the four absolute truths of Australian Farming Buddhism: Absolute Love, Absolute Honesty, Absolute Beer, and a fair price for Merino Fine relative to our current GNP & position against the American dollar. And I have to tell you he's hellishly keen on maintaining the correct spiritual position on hay-baling. Gave us ten minutes on it during our special "back-of-the-ute" spiritual concept meeting down there at Blueys Ute World. A bloody ripper it was......

Look I tried to take notes but we were all a bit blissed out on billy tea and fully-subsidised Buddhism so it's a bit sketchy. There's some stuff about teaching meditation techniques to sheep prior to shearing & never criticising your neighbour's ploughing techniques but I was particularly struck by one of his closing thoughts " If all you have to move a sheep to new pastures is a Rolls Royce, then a Rolls Royce will have to do".... which is bloody good news: a few of us were wondering about how to get those stray sheep out of Toorak Village.

I had the opportunity to ask him finally what exactly was the Meaning of Life. He smiled and said he couldn't nail it absolutely, but he was pretty sure it had something to do with scones, fresh raspberry jam, and cream.

Or beer.