Stories for deep meditation
3 Buddhist wisdom stories for deep meditation from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- He forgot to pre-program coming outStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Eastern-states monk leads a 9-day retreat; after first sit he never opens his eyes — yogis go to bed, chant, eat around him. He sits eight days without toilet/food/drink; emerges…
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He was leading a 9-day meditation retreat and it started off on a Friday afternoon and everyone came and they checked into the meditation retreat center and after checking in and doing the getting their rooms and getting the initial briefing they went to have half an hour meditation followed by the first talk by this monk and after the half an hour meditation the monk hadn't opened opened his eyes. So they went off for another half an hour just meditating. And after another hour, the monk was just sitting there, hadn't moved. And by about 9 or 10:00, the monk still hadn't opened his eyes to start the the first talk. So you know what they did? They all went to bed. When they got up in the morning for the first bit of chanting or morning meditation, the monk hadn't moved, was still there. When it came to the breakfast, the monk didn't ring the gong. He was just sitting there. And the morning talk, the monk just sat there. Lunchtime, the monk never moved. He sat there for 8 days without going to toilet, without eating anything, drinking anything, not moving at all
- The preceptor's snake in the lapStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm's preceptor, later acting Sangharaja of Thailand, came out of deep meditation in a Koh Samui coconut grove to find a snake coiled in his lap. He felt no fear, watched…
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he would meditate in a coconut grove. And he said once he had a nice deep meditation in the coconut grove and that when he came out of the meditation he saw a snake coiled up in his lap. Now, what would you feel if you came out of meditation at 8:00 and you find a big snake had been caught up in your lap? How would you react? And this monk, he was was my preceptor and he became the acting sangaraju of Thailand with lots of responsibility. And this coconut grove was in in the island of Got Samoy when that was not a famous place where tourists went to. That was his his hometown in there. But he said the amazing thing was he was so peaceful when he came out and opened his eyes. He saw the the snake in his lap called up very happy and he had no fear at all. And that was really surprising to him. He thought how can this happen? No fear. And of course he just watched the snake for about 10 or 15 minutes and then the snake just uncoiled and just slithered away with you can imagine gratitude simply because he had no fear.
- The woman who wasn't her motherStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After deep meditation on retreat, a woman tries recalling her earliest memory and sees herself being breastfed — by someone who isn't her mother. Alarmed, she asks Ajahn Brahm…
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that i was on some of these retreats some of the meditation they do is really deep so she had some deep meditation so i asked her afterwards why didn't you try and find out your earliest memory and she came to me afterwards and said yeah it worked she had a very deep meditation as she was coming out what's my earliest memory and she saw herself being suckled breastfed you know by her mum but then she looked up at her mum and it wasn't her mother it was somebody else she could recognize that even though it was many years afterwards i remember her coming up to me in the retreat really concerned is there something my mother hasn't told me was i adopted what's going on because i'm certain that person i saw is not my mother and so i said well it's a couple of days left of the retreat just calm down and when the retreat's over go and see your mum and just have like nice calm conversation and then ask her are you really my mum was i adopted and that's what she did she asked the mother was i adopted what are you talking about i'm your mother why are you asking that and so she told her mother what had happened her mother said can you describe that lady to me he was breastfeeding you and of course in meditation i have a very clear memory of what happened and she gave the description of that person who was breastfeeding her when she was a little baby and the mother was quite stunned that was your wetness you came from expensive family and not expensive a very rich family so we decided to get you in a wet nurse to feed you rather than me and you described her perfectly