Stories for low self-esteem
7 Buddhist wisdom stories for low self-esteem from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Class A and Class BStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An English school splits a year group into two classes of exactly equal ability by exam score — only the headmistress and two psychologists know the results — with equally good…
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This was a story of a test which was done in a school in England. Two classes of kids, the end of the year exams, you know, we just done the end of the year exams for our kids in school here in Western Australia. The school year is just finished or about to finish. And it's usually the usual thing is on the basis of the results this year, you know, that's how you'll be graded for, you know, the streams of learning for next year. And there was one school did this really interesting experiment. They had two classes in one year and having done their examination, they never published the results. There was, if I remember correctly, the head mistress and two psychologists were the only ones who knew what scores every kid got. But instead, what they did, they allocated the children as evenly as they possibly could. The kid who came top went in the same class as a kid who came fifth and sixth. No, fourth and fifth. Yeah. Fourth and fifth, 8th and 9th, 12th and 13th, 16th and 17th. They all went in one class. The kids who came second and third, sixth and seventh, 10th and 11th went in the other class. So they split the classes up as evenly as they possibly could. And the head mistress tried to find teachers who she thought were equally good. And they even went as far as to find classrooms with equal facilities. They made everything equal as possible except for one thing. They called one of those classes class A and the other one class B. And they were totally equal in ability based on the exam results. and they wanted to find out what would happen next year. Half of those kids went into class A and they weren't more brilliant, but their parents said, "I don't know how you did it, son. You're in class A. Carry on. Well done." And even the kids who came second and third going into class B. I want you to work harder next year. You know, no more privileges for you, more homework. the the parents thought class B meant the worst and even the teachers taught her to a lower level and the kids be know with her in class B the kids started to believe the class A kids were superior than the class B kids because one year later when they gave the exam again the children in class A did so well as if they were the top half chosen from the year before. And the class B kids did terribly. Literally after one year, half those children became class A children and the other one became class B simply because they gave that label and they believed in it, they became it.
- “My nose is too big”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In his first year in Perth a 13-year-old girl, brought by her father after every other psychologist and psychiatrist had failed, finally admits her problem: her nose is too big.…
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I still remember this when I first came to Perth the very first year this thirteen year old girl came to see me. Her father organised a meeting, she wanted counselling, she'd been to all the other psychologists, psychiatrists or whatever in Perth and this was the last resort to go and see a Buddhist monk. They must have been desperate in those days to come see a Buddhist monk. Because we didn't have much of a reputation and I asked her what's your problem and she took a long time to get it out of her cause you know when people really feel they have a big problem and they just don't want to share it with you especially a thirteen or fourteen year old young girl. And eventually I got it out of her. She said, looking down at the floor feeling so embarrassed, she said 'my nose is too big'. Now you know, you girls you know that, you know where she's coming from, that to her every time she looked in the mirror she saw her nose and it was too big. I tried to use like a scientific approach to her problem, you know I mentally I measured her nose and I've seen many noses in my life and I measured it in my mind and I told her, lady that your nose is pretty average. It's not the most beautiful nose, it's certainly not the most ugly nose, its just a nose, it's average ok. But she wouldn't accept that for her it was the biggest problem because it was right in front of her face. I didn't, I didn't actually help her, but she helped me to understand the negativity of fault finding.
- Seven monks in a caveStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Seven monks practise loving-kindness in a jungle cave: the abbot, his brother, his best friend, his 'enemy', a very old monk, a very sick monk, and the useless monk who snores,…
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And that was the story of the seven monks meditating in a cave. This is in the Opening the Door of Your Heart. And I had great fun telling this story when I was in the USA a couple of years ago, and listening to me was a bishop, an Episcopalian bishop, Similar to an Anglican bishop. I told this because I was feeling a little bit cheeky, See if I can catch him out, and he fell into the trap, but he thanked me for it afterwards. And he said, can I please use this in my sermon? I said, oh, please do. And it was this story of the seven monks meditating in a cave. They were meditating on loving-kindness which I hope you all know, May all beings be happy and well. May all beings without distinction, without discrimination on species or race, gender, sexual orientation, my loving-kindness goes to everyone. And the seven monks meditating in this cave, listen carefully because there's a question coming at the end. And if you've heard it before, you have to promise to please shut up. Don't spoil my fun. So, the seven monks were the head monk, the boss, the abbot. The second monk was his best friend. They'd grown up together, they loved each other, just like the third monk who was his brother. They loved each other. The fourth monk, however, even though they ordained, was an, he called him his enemy. They just had personality clash, they just didn't get on. Even though they were really good people, they just, you know, whenever one said one thing, it just always grated on the other. You know, really good people, they still can't get on. I see that quite often when people come to marriage counselling. Really good people, why don't you get on? There's something I still can't understand. You see the woman, the wife, she's just a beautiful girl, known her a long time. See the guy, amazing fellow, just be getting into bad habits, that's all. So this was a typical bad habit, this monk, two monks, didn't get on together. And the fifth monk, number five, was a very old monk. He's so old, so advanced in years. he could die any day. Just waiting for just his last breath. And the next monk was also, he was a sick monk, very ill, so ill, they never thought he would recover, no monk would know who was going to die first, the old monk or the sick monk. They were both at the end of their life. And the last monk, number seven, is what we call the useless monk. The useless monk, whenever they tried to meditate, he would always be the first one to fall asleep, which wasn't that bad, but he'd snore really loudly. Whenever they did any chanting, he would always chant out of key, if he could remember the words anyway. And even when he was wearing his robe, his robe always tended to fall off. I wonder what that useless monk is. And he was a useless monk, and as I often say when I mention this part of the story, and this is actually true, every monastery has one. (audience laugh) You can find out who it is. (audience laughs) No... He's a good monk. (laughter) He's supposed to be my attendant for the weekend. If I didn't say that, he wouldn't feed me. Look after me. Ask Ayya Hasapanna Nunneries as well, the same, they always have the useless one. Anyway, and the useless monk was number seven. And what happened next was this gang of robbers, these thieves, they found this cave deep in the jungle, and they thought, this is a great place for our hideout. After we've robbed and maybe killed, we can take all of our loot, all of our stolen goods into this cave. And they didn't have money laundering in those days. I was going to say sort of overseas banks, Panama, but I bet I'll get in trouble for that. So they didn't have overseas banks in those days, so they just had to hide their ill-gotten goods. This is a brilliant place to hide our goods. And also, they found it first. So, let's kill all the monks, so none of the monks can say the location of this cave to the police. That was what they wanted to do. But the senior monk, the senior monk was such a great talker, so convincing, if he hadn't taken the robes, he could have been the treasurer of a country like ours. I better not go further on that one either. So, the senior monk managed to talk and convince the head of the thieves to letting all the monks go except one. Because the only reason he wanted to kill everybody, or kill all the monks, is so they didn't tell where the location of the cave was. So the head monk said, look, we're monks, we keep our promises, we won't tell the location of the caves, let us go. And the head bandit said, no, I've got to be sure, I'm going to make an example, I'm going to kill one of the monks in front of the rest of you, in front of the other six, as a warning. Because if you tell the location of this cave, we'll find you, we'll come for you, and the same will happen to you. And that's the best deal the head monk could do. That one of them had to be killed in front of the others, so the rest could go free. So now the question is, who was chosen? And before you answer, I've got to go through the list again. Head monk, brother, best friend, enemy, old monk, sick monk, both at the end of their lives anyway, it was a day or two, 60, 70 years matter. And lastly the useless monk, and the useless monk had never done anything for anybody, never done any good karma in his whole life, maybe this was his chance. So if you were the head monk, who would you choose? Answer? If you know the answer, please be quiet, don't spoil it. Who did he choose? Thank you for that wrong answer because that's what the bishop said. (laughter) And when I tell the story, that's what most people say. He sacrificed himself. And that is the wrong answer but there's a reason why I tell this story which is coming up soon. Any other suggestions? Who else? Anyone for the useless monk? yeah, there at the back, I thought that. No, of course not. The answer is, those people who have heard the story know, it's a very good story once you find out what the answer is and why the meaning of telling this story. The answer was that the head monk's love for his brother was no more, no less than the love for the best friend. If you love two people just the same, you just can't choose between them. And his love towards the enemy was no more, no less than the other two. Even the old monk and sick monk and the useless monk, he loved everybody equally, he just couldn't judge between them, no matter who they were and what they did. His love was unconditional, all beings, no matter what gender, what race, what religion, what they did or what they didn't do, his love was given to everybody equally. And most importantly, his love towards himself was no more, no less than his love to all the other six monks. And that's where I told the Bishop, I said, didn't your teacher, Jesus, tell you to love your neighbour as yourself? He said, yeah, doesn't that mean to love yourself as your neighbour? No more, no less, that's what the word "as" means, to love your neighbour as yourself means to love yourself as your neighbour, equally Yes, he said, he gave me the Buddhist respect. He said that's why he wants to teach that in his sermons.
- “Thank you, I do deserve this medal”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At the annual John Curtin Medal ceremony, a woman with decades of community service insists others deserve it more — just as Ajahn Brahm himself had done; he realises both should…
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Because four years ago on that day the John Curtin University gave me this medal, the John Curtin medal, which is actually for community service, for doing good things for other people. And the first year after I got the medal I thought well, other people came to see me get a medal. I should go and see them. So I rocked up thinking I was just doing a duty, but I really was impressed with what I saw because there were people who'd done good things for the world, especially just this part of the world; and they were getting rewarded. I was just really impressed every year to see how people were really giving and serving for others. It was inspiring, so I've gone every year since. Just a couple weeks ago there was one lady there who'd done a huge amount around the Kalamunda area for the local community, but when she got her medal she came up to give a little speech and she said "I don't know why you've given it to me. There are so many other people who are much more deserving than me and even in my group, these other people work much harder than I do in this group. I've founded it and led it but.." And she was saying all this stuff and I remembered "oh here we go again - why can't you see that actually you do deserve that," because when I was listening to what she did -- she's an amazing woman -- how much she'd given and sacrificed and served for no reward through 30 or 40 years of her life she'd given to others. I thought wow you really deserve that medal. But could she say she deserved it? No. I did the same when I got my medal. "What the heck are you giving it to me for? There are many other people who work harder than me." Me, too, I could not see the beauty in myself. Really what I should've done was go up there and say "Thank you very much, I do deserve this medal." [laughter] But it was true, I did deserve it And she deserved it.
- The Happiness CertificateStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: For people who feel they don't deserve happiness he makes a certificate on monastery letterhead: 'This certificate grants the holder the right to be happy, for any reason or no…
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I started making this Happiness Certificate for them. Just to reinforce the idea – that this certificate is on BSWA… no, it’s on Bodhinyana monastery letterhead I think. This certificate grants the holder the right to be happy. For any reason or no reason at all. For the rest of their life. And their next lives as well. Signed ‘Ajahn Brahm’. No, I didn't ‘sign’, I said: ‘By order of Ajahn Brahm’. [Laughter] To make it a bit more assertive. Some of those actually worked. You gave it to people and they said ‘Yeah!’. The problem was, when I first did that - it was actually the retreat I was giving in… I suppose in Frankfurt. Because sometimes, people think they don't deserve the happiness, they're getting so close, but… So I gave one of these certificates out. And this fellow, he put it on the Internet. And then the next day he said ‘uhmm, can you please do another 50
- The man who walked straight past the judgeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: From a German book a German-born monk translated aloud: a seven- or eight-year-old boy has a near-death experience, walking through a forest to a shed where a man checks a book —…
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A long time ago, there was a book coming around our monastery down in Serpentine. I don't know if it's still there. It was in German, it'd be great if it was translated into English. I don't know if it's been done. But one of our German monks, a German-born monk, he read it out to me in translation. It was a story of a young boy in Germany who had an out-of-the-body experience, just floating out of your body, near-death experience, he was only about seven or eight years of age. And the reason I remembered it was because of what this little boy learned from that out-of-the-body experience. He was walking through a forest, in Germany, forests are really important to people, so they live in the forest, their culture is born out of the forest. So that he was walking through a forest, having temporarily died, and he came to like a barn, like a shed, and it's typical the way that some people perceive that time when you left your body at the near-death or death, that he came to this guy who asked what his name was, and the guy looked in some book, they always say it's a book, these days if young people die, they find he just logs into a computer and checks your name, looked into a book, his name wasn't there, so he said, no you're not supposed to be dead, you'd better go back. But he said that before you go back, you can actually see how this all works. And so the next person who came to see if he really deserved to die or not was a farmer. And when the farmer came up, you know the guy, what's your name, oh yeah, your time's up, time you're dead, but said the guy who was with the book, and he said, have you ever killed anything, any animals? he said, oh no, no, no, maybe one or two, but no more than that. And the guy looked at this little kid and said, you see, even though he's dead, he still lies through his teeth, he was a farmer, he killed many animals. But as they were just talking to this farmer to see what he thought, where he is gonna go.. there was another man walked right past the shed, right past, and went up to what the little kid thought was heaven. And the kid said to the guy, aren't you going to stop him and ask him what he's been doing? And that's when this judge told this little kid, throughout that man's whole life, he hasn't judged anybody, therefore, we're not going to judge him.
- Two monks tell each other who they areStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After a three-month rains retreat together, Ajahn Brahm and another Western monk sit down and tell each other what they think of each other. The description he hears of himself…
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I did a lovely experiment after when I was a monk I was spending three months in the range retreat with another Western Monk and at the end of The Retreat we sat down and we told each other what we thought of each other now honestly two monks and I was listening to his opinion of who he thought I was and it was totally different to anything I ever expected to see myself I heard myself described in another person's eyes that was not what I thought of myself and I did the same to him and he was gobsmacked too