Stories for learning to meditate
4 Buddhist wisdom stories for learning to meditate from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Joke: round the meditation menuJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A beginner on retreat can't do breath meditation, so he teaches them anapanasati; that's too hard, so metta; then loving kindness; then insight; then vipassana; then letting go;…
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Sometimes when they come on a retreat, they haven't done meditation before, I teach them say say breath meditation. Then after a day they say, "Oh, I can't do breath meditation." So I teach them Anapanasati. And after Anapanasati they know that's too difficult, I teach them metta meditation. They can't do metta, I teach them loving kindness. They can't do loving kindness, I teach them insight meditation. They can't do insight meditation, I teach them vipassana. They can't do vipassana meditation, I teach them letting go. They can't do letting go meditation, I teach them present moment awareness. They can't do present moment awareness, I teach them like the empty three questions meditation. They can't do the empty three questions meditation, I teach them breath meditation. By that time they forgot that's where they started.
- The leaf moves only because of the windAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile (from Ajahn Chah, as he tells it): Ajahn Chah would hold up his hand and wave it — not at flies — saying this is a leaf on a tree. It moves only because of the wind; when…
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This is a meditation teaching from Ajahn Chah, he would hold up his hand, [waves hand] this is for Liza in the United States, I'm not saying goodbye to you. He said: ‘This hand represents a leaf on a tree. And it only moves like this because it's the wind blowing. If the wind stops, the leaf still moves, but less and less and less, until it comes to a stop. Because the default position of a leaf is to be still. It's only the wind makes it move.' And Ajahn Chah said: ‘The default position of the human mind is to be still. It's the wind of wanting something makes you move.
- The most beautiful thing in the toilet bowlStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On one retreat Ajahn Brahm's mind is so still and full of energy that everything looks beautiful. After going to the toilet he glances into the bowl and is overwhelmed: not one…
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And that was the story of when This is really over the top, but it's beautiful. That when during one retreat, I was getting some very very deep meditation. My mind was just so still and peaceful and just so much energy that whatever you saw was just so beautiful and joyful. That's just the nature of things. You're so still, you see so much more. And I am a human being, just everybody has to do the same. I had to go to the toilet. And after going to the toilet, I just happened to glance into the bowl to see its contents. Wow. That is so beautiful. I'd never in my whole life seen such a beautiful piece of The browns, they're not just one brown. Next time you go, have a look. It's not just one brown. It's all different shades of brown. And just the way they are just arranged together like some Picasso. And the way it's just covered with this beautiful film of, you know, a little bit of mucus and water. And it shines like a diamond, you know, in the sunshine. It was sparkling. And the fragrance, my goodness. It always makes people laugh. But that's actually a true story. If you'd have been there in the cubicle next to me, you'd probably call for the guys in the white coats to take this crazy bug cuz I was really getting off on this beautiful piece of turd. And the reason why cuz my mind had opened up, and it was beautiful. You know, it was one of the hardest things I did, but I'm used to letting go. Press the button and see it fall away. I wanted to take it out, take it home with me.
- 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.