Stories for chronic illness
6 Buddhist wisdom stories for chronic illness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Chah sits in the centre of the feverStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Malaria was an occupational hazard for jungle monks, and Ajahn Chah suffered it for years. During one intense attack, instead of lying in bed worrying, he sat up and meditated…
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And I know Ajahn Chah's story, my teacher, being a forest monk living in the jungles he had malaria for many years it was for those monks an occupational hazard just like these days, for current monks having tummy aches is an occupational hazard simply because as I told you I don't own my stomach you put whatever you want into it, and sometimes my stomach says 'no' (Ajahn laughs) But nevertheless you get to peace with that. His occupational hazard was malaria for many years I remember him telling me how he overcame his malaria once and for all having a very intense attack of the fever and instead of just laying in bed, sitting up meditating with it instead of running away from the thing or complaining about it, worrying about it what most people do when you got a problem, a disease or a tumor or whatever you think about it too much it creates more problems by the way react to them Instead he sat with it, he said he sat right in the centre of his fever quietly silently had peace with it. And it's a very hard thing to do but it's a wonderful thing to train yourself to be able to do. To be able to make peace with pain or with the fever, or with difficulty to make absolute peace with it so you don't even think you are just there at one with what you are experiencing not making any inner speech with it. he said as he was just with that he sort of felt like he was in the centre of a raging forest fire. but in the centre it was cool. but he could perceive all around him was a fire getting hotter and hotter and hotter which was his fever increasing in intensity and he said at one point the fever got so hot it burst and everything was cool. He never got malaria ever again.
- 'Better to die than disrobe'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Pasanno, an old friend, suffers constant stomach pain in Thailand; a Bangkok doctor finds an ulcer and says the only cure is to eat in the afternoon — forbidden for monks.…
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This monk, you won't mind me mentioning Ajahn Passano, is a very good good monk, a good old friend. And he was over in in Thailand. Eventually went over to United States and started a monastery over there. But this one day, the you know, he always had terrible tummy ache. And when he checked it out with the doctor in Bangkok or somewhere, they found out it was a stomach ulcer. And how can you cure it? And the doctor said, "Well, you know, just the only way you can cure it is probably you have to eat in the afternoon." And that's a no-no for monks. We can't eat in the afternoon. Not allowed to. So he said went to see Ajahn Chah. Said, "Look, I have to eat in the afternoon, otherwise it's not going to heal. It's just really painful." You know what Ajahn Chah said, my teacher? I don't think you get away with it these days. He said "It's better to die than disrobe." He's really tough. It's not what Ajahn Passano wanted to hear. But anyways, I wasn't allowed to. But then uh we got to later, short time later, Ajahn Passano developed the scrub typhus, you know, which all of our monks got in that monastery. Had a very high fever. And when the typhus, you know, healed itself so did the stomach ulcer. He was okay.
- Maha Bua sat in the cool centre of the feverStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Visiting Ajahn Maha Bua (late king's teacher), Brahm hears his talk about malaria under Ajahn Man: instead of fleeing the fever he went into it in meditation until he found a…
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when I was with this monk mahaboah he was a very famous monk he was the the late king of Thailand's teacher and but he never realizes how well I understood Thai at the time because he decided to give a talk and he'd said this is for that Western Market just come which was me gave me a special talk all the monks were there and afterwards he asked for it to be translated I didn't need that I understood it perfectly and obviously other people like that talk because I've seen it you know published you know in little booklets which they have and the core of that teaching was an experience mahabua had at when he was a student of adjun Charles teacher this guy called ajanman this monk great man and it was when the malaria fever now remember these are Forest monks living in the jungles of Thailand Northeast Thailand North Thailand even Central Thailand at a time when malaria was Rife it was just another Forest monks disease everybody got it and uh you learn how to deal with it yeah there was some herbal medicines but a lot of times you just dealt with it just as an aside I'm just going off and I love tangents but this is how he overcame his malaria fever he said he was still in just the first years of his Monastery upon where he settled down where monks like me went and listened to his teachings right in the middle of a malaria fever but he was meditating at the time meditating with a fever got no choice you know we can't sort of lay down well yeah he's still got the fever it's still really sort of uh aches and all lots of joint pains and no no energy so they decided to meditate and what he did was important it's part of the story instead of running away from it you know what it's like when it's something which is hurting which is life-threatening we always want to escape run away get rid of it find a place where you know we can live without this torturing us but he decided to go in the opposite direction go right into it now face it and go right towards it this is what we do in meditation we don't go away from stuff we always go into it we don't go on to another thing always into where we are now it's always in in never on on in meditation so you may hear me say about stages of meditation yeah that's almost like I call that land landmarks so you can some find some idea of where you are it's always going in this stage into the next stage into the next stage always going in so he went so far in to the malaria fever then he came to like a spot like the eye in the middle of a cyclone where it was really cool that's how we described it and around it was just like fire really intense he could feel the fire but he was cool in the middle he knew it was there but you know he was in a quiet calm peaceful cool spot right in the center and he said it got hotter and hotter and hotter but he always remained in that cool spot in the center and it got so hot it exploded and that was the end of the malaria fever never had it again
- The ex-Marine monk who caught his fits earlyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk friend, shot in the head as a US Marine in Vietnam, has epileptic fits from the brain injury. Over a couple of years of mindfulness he learns to sense the build-up earlier…
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one of my friends who was a monk many years ago. He was in the US Marines in the Vietnam War He had because he was shot in the back of the head And had some brain damage Otherwise is a wonderful monk very kind, but he had epileptic fits because of the injury being shortened though in a head how he dealt with his epileptics have hits similar way to overcome the panic attacks Because he was aware Mindful he could actually catch those fits Earlier and earlier and earlier he could see the signs. He could be aware to see how it works because The fits never just came out of the blue they had the introduction of the little bits getting more tense more tense he could actually feel it coming It took for a couple of years before he could catch it early enough He could take another path Relax used to go to his room darken the room just lay down and just relaxed as much as he could and then after a while no more epileptic fits
- The Rhodes scholar given permission to dieStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A fit Tennessee wrestler and Rhodes scholar, a fellow monk in Thailand, fell desperately ill and was sent to a monastery in England, where he stayed in his room for two or three…
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like this young roads scholar who I grew up with in Thailand. He was so fit and so smart and he was like a wrestler but also uh road scholar means you go to Oxford University. Really smart fellow but when he was in Thailand he got really really sick very close to death. We sent him over to a monastery in England thinking that might be of service to him help him but he just was in his room for about two or three years without being able to get out of his room. And one day one of the monks went up there and said to him, "On behalf of all the people who've been looking after you all these years, all the people who care about you and love for you, I've come up here on the behalf of everybody to give you permission to die. Stop trying to get healthy. Stop trying to please others by trying this and trying that to get rid of the sickness." Not that this roads scholar, he's a champion wrestler over in he was he was from the I think from Tennessee. He used to speak this wonderful South American draw as a monk. South uh yeah southern states of America draw and a very nice fellow and he just wept. He'd been trying so hard to get better that literally was causing him to be sick. From that day on, he started to improve in his health. That was so many years ago, maybe 35 years ago, he's still alive. Once he got permission to die, he kept on living.
- “Why don't you come and stay with us?” — the monk in Casuarina PrisonStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk teaching at a high-security prison describes monastery life (4 am rising, one meal, hard work, no TV, sleeping on the floor); horrified, a prisoner invites him to come and…
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And this particular story is an anecdote when one of our monks, when I was too busy doing all these other things, we used to go teaching in prisons, but another monk started teaching in prison. When he started teaching in prison, this was in Casuarina Prison, at one of the top-security jails. After a while the prisoners there said "Can you stay back a bit longer, we want to sort of talk to you, just find out about you." So he stayed back a little bit longer, they gave him a cup of tea and some chocolate now if you give a monk a cup of tea and chocolate, they're gonna stay forever, so he stayed behind for a bit of tea and chocolate. They started asking him questions about life in a Buddhist monastery in the West. What do you guys do? Have you ever wondered what we do in our monastery? So he said, "Okay, the day in the life of a monk, we get up at four o'clock in the morning." And just at that the prisoners were aghast. "Four o'clock in the morning! Even in prison, you don't have to get up at that time." And the monk he did actually make a qualification, he said, "Actually it's voluntary, it's optional, getting up at four o'clock in the morning," which is true, it's optional, you can always get up earlier, if you want to, that's the option. "And then what do you do?," and he told them, "We meditate." They said, "Can't you just watch the end of the late night movie?" He said, "No, we don't have TVs." "You don't have TVs in the monastery, we have TVs in our cells in prison, that's terrible. So what you do then, you have your breakfast?" We do have a breakfast at the monastery, we usually have just one cup of cereal in it and that's about it, or you know someone, you know has his noodles, but it's only one cup, that's all. They said, "Wow, you know in Casuarina Jail we can have bacon, we have pancakes, we can have cereal, you have everything there, whatever you want." And they said, "Why don't you do that in the monastery?" "No, no, we only have a bit of cereal and that's it." "And then what do you do in the morning?" "And then we work hard at Bodhinyana Monastery." We do these amazing chores, you know building, and even I do that, and if you go down to the retreat centre, we're doing this ramp and I was spending two days cutting the bricks, it was a huge angle grinder, really heavy work, getting myself all dusty. I like some joining in when there's any concrete work. Tell the story once with doing concrete work, when you do concrete work, even as a monk, you get it all splashed all over you. So you know just boys being boys, I'm still a boy you know, still just maybe a bit old to be a boy, but I still like getting myself all dirty. So I got all this concrete on top of me, as I was walking back to my hut to have a shower, I passed a Sri Lankan woman and she was in this really expensive sari, she was visiting the monastery. She came up to me and I'll never forget this, she said, "Uh... I've come to see the abbot Ajahn Brahm." I thought very quickly and I said, "Madam, if you go to the hall over there he'll probably be there in about fifteen minutes." That was enough time for me to go to my room, get a shower and get changed into some clean robes. So I went up to the hall, and there she was waiting, and I said, "Oh! I'm Ajahn Brahm," you know she never recognized me. That's how dirty I was. I gave her a nice talk, you know about the monastery and about Buddhism, what we're doing here and she was really impressed, so just before she left she said, "You know you've got a really good monastery, are you're a really good monk, but if you don't mind me saying this, I saw this really dirty monk when I came here and I think you should do something about that." I said, "I'll talk to him later, Ma'am". Which I did. So that's actually how hard we work, and when the prisoners heard this, again they were really surprised, 'cause yeah, in prison you have to do jobs, but they take it real easy in those jails in Australia. They said, "They'll never get us to work that hard." They said "And then you have your lunch?" Yeah, we have our lunch, many of you have been to our monastery, we eat it out of a bowl, everything goes in one bowl. Sometimes it's true you do get curry on spaghetti. No sorry, I got that wrong, you got custard on spaghetti. That's right, you ever had custard on spaghetti? Why do you say "yuck" for, you've never eaten it, but actually you're right, it is gross. Sometimes you have custard on spaghetti. I've had ice cream on curry, chocolate ice cream, yeah, that's also yucky. 'Cause you know, you put it in your bowl, and for me because I'm the senior monk I put it in the bowl myself and I give it to somebody to take up, 'cause that's their duty. By the time, they're not really careful, they just shake it all over the place, you know I put it in the right position when I start, by the time it gets up there it's all over the place, but that's life. And they were saying that even in prison, even when you go to solitary, you get a tray the custard is here, the spaghetti is over there, it's separate compartments. "Don't you have compartments in your bowl?" Have a look at our bowls, we don't have separate compartments, it goes all over the place. They said, "That's disgusting!" "So what you do in the afternoons?" He said, "We meditate." "Can't you sort of play some music, or sort of play a game of footie or something." "No, we're not allowed to play footie, we just meditate all afternoon." They said, "Don't you get bored?" "No, that's what we're supposed to do." "So I suppose you hangout for dinner?" "Dinner? We don't have dinner in our monasteries, we just eat in the morning time, there's no dinner." They said, "Well, even in prison they give you something to eat in the evening and you have snacks throughout the day, whatever you want. So what do you do in the evening then? You know, can you play cards play monopoly or something, pass the time?" He said "No, we can't do that." "Don't tell us" they said, You meditate, don't you?" "Yeah, of course we do." "Oh God, that must be terrible. Then what time do you go to bed?" And the monk said, "Bed? Bed?... we don't have beds, I sleep on the floor." They were absolutely disgusted. Even in prison they put you in that little cot with the mattress on top, not in our monastery, I sleep on the floor. Anyway, the prisoners were actually really surprised. They were really surprised, but not only surprised, they felt sorry for this monk who had been visiting them, and this is true story, one of them was so upset that this man who they got to like was living in such a hard situation, one of them blurted out, "That's terrible in your monastery, why don't you come in here and stay with us instead?" And they had a point, it is actually much more comfortable in any prison in Western Australia than in Bodhinyana Monastery, or even in Dhammasara Nun's Monastery. So why is it that people are trying to get out of jail, and they're trying to break into our monastery, to stay there, waiting lists. That got me thinking, what's the difference between our monastery and the prison? Prison is actually more comfortable, the monastery is much harsher. What's the difference? The only difference is in a monastery people want to be there. In a prison, doesn't matter how comfortable it is, people don't want to be there, that's the only difference.