Stories for curiosity about consciousness
4 Buddhist wisdom stories for curiosity about consciousness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- The convict who left his body to watch footballStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A meditation student at Karnet Prison Farm tells Ajahn Brahm that as a boy of five or six, having surgery in what was then Yugoslavia, he died on the table and floated out of his…
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Oh, this one case was of this young man. There was a boy about five, six, seven years of age. He told me this story at length and he was having some operation. This was many years ago in Yugoslavia when Yugoslavia was this one country and he was having an operation and he died on the operating table and he described just how he was floating out of his body and he could see that the doctors who were operating on him were looking at the wrong place. They weren't seeing where the problem was. And so he said that's where he was like dying or was actually dead outside of his body. And then he said all he did a five or six year old boy that's how old he was. He just thought the doctors you know he couldn't speak outside of his body but just thought doctor don't look over here look over there. And immediately that's what the doctor did. And he shouted out hey here's a problem. And because they could see what the problem was that they um solved the problem and he was fine again. He he recovered. But he said to me and he told me this story. He was one of my students meditating in Caret Prison Farm many years ago. He was a a convict in the jail. And he said but he didn't really mind being a convict. He said because ever since that time he came back into his body but whenever he wanted to leave his body he could he could do the old astral traveling make up a mind-made body as we say in in Buddhism and he could leave his body. So he said whenever he wanted to watch a football match didn't matter what prison they put him in he just leave his body and go and watch. he wanted to if he wanted to go and see a a concert by someone in Perth, he didn't even need to to book tickets, he just go there in his astral body and just get, you know, front seat view. And the way he said it and all the other information he gave me, he said, "Yes, okay. I think that's pretty accurate what he was saying.
- The maths graduate with almost no brainStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm retells Professor John Lorber's case of a Sheffield University mathematics honours graduate whose brain scan showed about 1% cortex, the skull filled with fluid — yet…
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professor John lber about the boy with no brain an honored student in mathematics at Sheffield University sorry an Honor Graduate who had a slightly misshaped skull the doctor gave him a a brain scan a CT scan and it was only 1% cortex was there everything else was missing basically as professor lber said he had no brain to speak of and there's no way that that small amount left could actually compensate for everything which was missing and at that time when I tell that story I also want to do research and I ask people CU his whole head was just filled with cranial fluid there's no brain there no gray matter so I asked people if you can do an experiment and help me can you move your head from back to forth cuz if you can hear any slushing inside that must be you as well you've got no brain it's just cranial fluid but that fellow was an honest student in mathematics brilliant normal had a girlfriend in every which way you wouldn't know he had no brain
- The tennis shoe on the window ledgeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A patient who floated out of her body during an operation later reports a tennis shoe on a high windowsill of the operating theatre. Staff say that's impossible — it's cleaned…
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now one of the interesting cases was of this uh person having an operation in a theater operating theater in london in uk somewhere i think it was in bristol i could be wrong there but anyway they floated up above their body and afterwards they said that when they came back and they recovered they said that in the operating theaters an old operating theater there was a tennis shoe on the windowsill there's a weird thing to say and i said of course there's no ted issue on the windowsill you know on the inside you know this place is cleaned every day it's an operating theater has to be sterile what's a tennis shoe doing up there but she said it was certainly up there they couldn't see it from the floor so someone actually got a ladder and when they actually went up on the windowsill what do you think they found the tennis shoe is a famous example of someone seeing something which should not have been seen
- The wall that disappearedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young theoretical physicist, Ajahn Brahm sits at a Zen monastery in the north of England, in a converted cowshed, told to meditate with eyes open. Calm and without inner…
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I usually bring up this experience I had when I was a lay person. when I was meditating wherever I could find a place to meditate and this was in a Zen monastery in the north of England and in this Zen monastery I didn't know what I was supposed to do they just you know in the little hall which is a converted cow shed that we sat down and we had to meditate with our eyes open it one of the first times I'd meditated with my eyes wide open I didn't know what I was supposed to do but I just meditated. But because I'd done some meditation before and I knew how to be in the present moment and stop this inner speech, as I was just with my eyes open, just being very peaceful, very calm, a strange thing happened. One of those weird experiences which show you there's more to this world than you'd thought. And at this time I was a theoretical physicist when I just looked at this wall just a whitewashed wall. Then suddenly without warning the wall disappeared. It vanished. It just wasn't there anymore. Which was so weird. One minute there was a wall solid and now there was nothing there. And of course instead of getting scared or think I was going crazy I used know what we do in Buddhism called insight. What's happening? And it soon became very clear to me that this is just the nature of the physical senses especially the sense of seeing sight. If you watch something, put your full attention on watching and what you observe doesn't move or change. It disappears. The sense of sight turns off.