Stories for family conflict
5 Buddhist wisdom stories for family conflict from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Four old men outside in the rainStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Chinese parable: wealth, success, love and harmony stand as old men in the rain; the family can invite only one in first — harmony must enter or the other three will not stay.
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four old men and the four old men were outside in the rain. It couldn't have been in Australia, not Western Australia anyway, because we don't have rain anymore. But it were outside in the rain and it was cold and they getting wet and soaking. And the owner of the house, not the owner of the house, the woman of the house, she looked out the window and they saw these four old men there getting soaked. And so she invited them in. And they said, "No, we can't come in until your whole family comes home." And you decide which one of us to invite in because you can only invite one of one of us in. And if you invite the correct person, all four of us will come in. If you invite the wrong person, only one will come in. And this was the story. So when everybody came home, then the family had a meeting. They said, "These four old men are getting soaked outside. You've seen them outside, but they won't come in until we decide which one of them to invite first. And if we get it right, they'll all come in." And the four men were called wealth, success, peace, and harmony. And so the father said, "I work so hard. And even though I work hard, it's very difficult to make any money. The government takes most of it in tax. And what I bring home after tax is so many, many uh bills to pay." You know, life is so hard. So, what do I really want? I want wealth. And the wife said, "Oh, no. I want success. I want just my family and you to be successful in life." "Success is much more important than wealth." "No, it isn't," said the father. "Wealth is more important." "No," said the wife. "Success, wealth is more important." And the daughter said, "Shut up, you two. All I want is some peace." And they said, "That's actually quite true. We need some peace in the house." So he said some peace and the father said well some wealth could be good too and the mother said no no no I really really think success is the best and so the three of them started to argue and then the son said look all I ever want in my house between my mother my father my sister and me is some harmony that's really what I want and so they all thought actually I think you are correct so they invited harmony first into their house and when they invited did harmony in, he told them they'd made the correct choice. Because when harmony comes into your house, then following right behind comes peace. And with peace, you'll also find success. And with success, you'll also find wealth. So all the four old men came into the house following harmony. It was a wonderful story about the priority of having harmony
- Her mother stopped shoutingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A young woman in Bangkok whose whole family came to his talks never did herself — until she noticed her mother had stopped shouting at her so much. She came to the Phuket retreat…
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Just even Bangkok recently, sort of one of the girl, she told me, yeah, she knew me for a long time, but she hardly ever came to the talks. All her family did. And she came to my retreat in Phuket and started coming to all my talks because she saw the result on her mother. Her mother sort of stopped shouting at her so much. And that much was enough to say, "Hey, there's something going on here." So she wanted to try out and see if she could find out why her mother was a much nicer mother after she'd been meditating for such a long time.
- Her mother-in-law had the face of GuanyinStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A Vietnamese woman married to an Australian could not win over a hostile (possibly racist) mother-in-law despite food, chanting and metta. Falling asleep in a temple she saw…
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there was this Vietnamese girl who married an Australian Caucasian and they loved each other. Really two good people. But the problem was her mother-in-law. I don't know why mothersin-law have these reputations, but someone did tell me that if you rearrange the letters which smell which spell mother-in-law, you rearrange those letters, it actually spells Hitler woman. [laughter] You can you can try that when you go home. But not all women are like that. Obviously, not more mothers-in-law. Some mothers are not really sweet and nice. But anyway, this was one of those mothersin-law, which you know, she must have been quite racist, I would suppose, because why did you marry sort of an Asian girl? Aren't they nice Aussie girls to marry or whatever? But you know, just she they fell in love. They're both really good people. But the Vietnamese girl, you know, she really, of course, and this is my husband's f mother. Of course, I've got to love her and got to try and reconcile. So, she realized I've got really good qualities. And so, she tried everything apparently everything to try and find out how to get her mother-in-law to love her. She tried, you know, getting special food for her, but you know, her mother-in-law didn't like noodles. and and tried even then she went to the temple and asked the monk to do some chanting. Please make my mother-in-law love me. Didn't work. She tried doing loving kindness meditation. You know that's another type of meditation. You sit there. Oh, may my love mother-in-law be happy and well. Maybe she free of suffering. May she be just so blissful. That didn't work. [snorts] And she had tried everything apparently to get her mother-in-law to love her. Nothing worked except the very last strategy which she used. Now you may know in the Vietnamese traditions mostly Mahayana they have this image of likewan yin the goddess of mercy. Now you know sometimes as a terravada Buddhist we don't have that in Terravada Buddhism but you know I've talked to many many people over the years and many many people especially like Vietnamese boat people in those days when they sort of fled Vietnam and they just trusted their life you know to these rickety old boats sailing a huge distance to get to Australia such a long long long journey and most of them didn't make it. Some did. And I remember a lot of them they they told me that they were just know they were robbed by pirates. They had no money. They didn't know what they were going to do. They're going to make anywhere. And many of them I remember them. These are people I've talked to personally eventually ended up in Perth. They said that they had uh just almost losing it and they saw this image of the this they call it goddess of mercy Quanin coming over the the waves to them and they swore to me they actually saw it and then right behind this goddess of mercy Quanin they saw a a British frigot you know when Hong Kong was under the Brits sailing towards them to save them. Quan came first mobly leading the Brits to rescue rescue these poor refugees and of course then they got taken to Hong Kong and eventually settled over here in Australia. There's so many stories like that and it's something which you know in religion in spirituality now what actually did they see but anyway that's another question but you know you can't deny that they said they definitely saw that but anyway this woman said well what can I do she went to the temple and of course in these stories her meditation wasn't that good Instead, she fell asleep. And when she was know asleep in the temple and what she actually saw was like a vision of this goddess of mercy come to help her. And she was really surprised. But there was a difference. It wasn't the normal goddess of mercy you see in Buddhist temples, Mahayana temples. The one which she saw no looked like the ordinary goddess of mercy but had a different face. The face was exactly the same as her mother-in-law [laughter] and that was all was necessary. Once she she saw her mother-in-law look like the goddess of mercy. Next time she saw her mother-in-law, her attitude totally changed somehow or other. Just seeing something beautiful, good, lovable, and really inspiring in a person who you didn't like or didn't like you was all that was necessary to change her attitude. And apparently since that time that uh the the the goddess of mercy otherwise known as mother-in-law changed her attitude and now they have this beautiful relationship. And that was actually told by one of the Vietnamese nuns who live in Perth many years ago
- I'm leaving — with five Singapore dollarsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Singapore psychotherapist recognises his leaving-home story: at six she packed a suitcase, got five dollars, and her busy mother told her to get her own lunch.
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psychotherapist from Singapore who come to stay at my monastery for a while and she when I told her this story she was actually rolling about laughing being totally disrespectful but she could help herself because she saw that what the heck are you doing he said he won't believe this but I did the same when I was 6 years of age in Singapore I was really upset at my mummy and I said I'm leaving exactly the same thing happened the only difference was in Singapore the mother didn't have time to make a sandwich to go for five Singapore dollars
- It wasn't the flag or the wind — your mouths were movingJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Two monks argue whether the flag or the wind is moving; a Zen master says their minds are moving. Unsatisfied, they ask a Theravada forest ajahn, who says they are all wrong: it…
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the conflict of the two monks who were watching the flag latter and one monk said look at that the flag is fluttering and the other one said no the wind is moving not the flag and they had an argument this is I'm going to use this as a metaphor later on and they couldn't solve the argument was the wound wind moving or the flag moving so they went to see the Zen Monk and the sand monk said you were both wrong it wasn't the flag moving it wasn't the wind moving your minds were moving and they weren't satisfied with that either so the three of them the two monks and the Zen master went to go and see the theravada forest adjun and he said you are all wrong it wasn't the flag movie it wasn't the wind moving it wasn't your mind's moving the problem was your mouths were moving and that is that the important part that's actually a little bit of a joke and I was actually saw that in a list of jokes not because your mind moves because your mouth moves that's where the conflict starts from