Stories for self-criticism
4 Buddhist wisdom stories for self-criticism from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- All his questions vanished before Ajahn TateStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Tate, a famous monk once sent home from hospital to die of cancer (he lived another 25 years), is so revered that young Ajahn Brahm waits two days for an appointment, full…
Read full story
I went to visit this famous monk called Ajahn Tate in Sri Chiangmai on the Mekong River over in Nong Khai Province, the north of Thailand. He was supposed to be an amazing monk. In fact, when I first became a monk, he was dying of cancer. He was in the main hospital being looked after by the King of Thailand because he was a famous monk. And the doctor said okay, waste of time looking after you anymore, there’s nothing more we can do, you’re going to die. So he said, well I might as well die in my temple in Bangkok. So he went back to his temple and he died about 25 years later. [laughter] And he was an amazing monk and of course he had such a good reputation that, I could speak Thai, and I just wanted to go to these great masters and ask all my questions. It was just like, you know, we all have these questions inside of us, you get these incredibly wise beings and you just wanted to ask questions from someone who knows what they’re talking about. And so, you know, he was very famous, had to make an appointment, went up there, spent about two days waiting. When I went into his room, and you know what happened, all the questions totally vanished. My mind was so blank but what I felt instead, was this incredible, and I mean just this incredible unconditional love. I was a young monk. I still had my fantasies, my defilements and all that sort of stuff. And this guy he loved me for who I was, I didn’t have to become enlightened. I didn’t have to sort of be a good monk. I didn’t have to clean up my act. You felt totally accepted for who you were with all your faults. And that’s the feeling I had. As soon as I got a feeling like that, the next feeling I had, I don’t want to move, I want to stay in here. for the rest of my life. I’m not going anywhere because it was such a beautiful feeling of having this total, absolutely hundred percent acceptance. This guy would not criticize me at all and he never would.
- Joke: tickets for the policemen's ballJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A New South Wales policeman pulls over a speeding woman driver. She asks if he's stopped her to sell her a ticket for the policemen's ball. 'Policemen don't have balls,' he…
Read full story
A uh policeman in New South Wales saw a car speeding. So pulled it the car over. It was a woman driver. And so as soon as the woman driver opened up her window, she said to the policeman, "I suppose you stopped me to actually to uh get me to buy a ticket for the policeman's ball. And the policeman replied, "Peaceman don't have balls." And then realized what he was saying and said, "Have a good afternoon, madam."
- The encyclopedia he felt guilty for sellingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a poor student he sold children's encyclopedias door to door, trained to make parents feel guilty. He sold one — to a struggling young family — and felt terrible about it for…
Read full story
as a poor student I got a job setting encyclopedias door-to-door that's how desperate I was the worst thing was I actually sold one because actually a children's encyclopedia and after selling one I felt so guilty afterwards because selling the stupid worthless encyclopedia to this young family who just had a kid and they would feel guilty because you actually trained how to make parents feel so guilty but they would just know once that would ask them pedophiles or child abusers if they didn't buy this stupid book for their kid so they bought this bucket of a thing they waited bunny on this stupid book and they're struggling to survive and I felt terrible for years on that until one day is actually I told her story here and somebody came up to me and they said this is weird they said it's just too much of a coincidence but some of these coincidence because of the law of karma that's how this coincidence happens they said when I was very small this some woman said she lived in England she said this young student came to my door and sold my parents this children's encyclopedia and she said I love those books they meant so much to me and I had so much happiness reading those encyclopedias so I don't know if it was you but he could have been as soon as I heard that I thought wow actually something good
- 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 —…
Read full story
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.