Stories for student life
5 Buddhist wisdom stories for student life from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Cambridge Botanical Gardens — first bamboo clumpStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Student days near Baitman Street, Cambridge: first day in the Botanical Gardens he finds a bamboo clump so beautiful he stares 10–15 minutes, invents 'sensuous, soft and slender,…
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Cambridge Botanical Gardens. It was only about 5 minutes walk from where we had our retreat center. And do you know, I don't remember my girlfriend's name. I remember the place where we had our retreat in Baitman Street in Cambridge. My memory of those times was so powerful. Still is. If you really enjoy something, it becomes easy to remember. So just down the road from Baitman Street in Cambridge, we had the botanical gardens and I went in there the first day and just when you went through the entrance [snorts] on the right hand side there was this clump of bamboo and I couldn't believe it. That was the most beautiful clump of bamboo that I've ever seen in my life. I'm not exaggerating. And I kind of thought that isn't that what happens? Bamboo is such a beautiful plant. It's in most of the Chinese water colors you see in museums throughout the world. They always have a clump of bamboo there. If you look at the bamboo stems, they're slender and they have the little joints, the color changes and then the next stem and it gets thinner and thinner and as it does, it bends under its own weight as it curves through space and then you have its branches and leaves which are also very slender. And I'd always say from that time, please excuse me, I'm a monk. Sensuous, soft and slender, coming to a point. And I looked at that first clump of bamboo and it was incredibly beautiful. That I remember very easily. So much so that I just stared at it for about 10 or 15 minutes. When you see something which shocks you, which is really beautiful, you do end up just staring. But I had enough introspection to realize in those days, I think it was 1970, many students took drugs. I never did, but I thought if somebody sees me, [snorts] they call the police, have me arrested or tested or something and disturb my solitude. In those days I had hair and I tell people the hairstyle which I had was such a big curly hair on the outside. Very different than what I've got now. And that went all around the top of my head and where it finished that's where the beard started. Very thick beard. It was very useful to endure the cold. And when people asked what was it, it was like the donut look. You could see my face in the middle and around the outside was all hair. That kind of describes it. And so if someone had seen me and semi staring, you know, entranced by a clump of bamboo, they would have thought the wrong things. So what I did, I just there was a bench close by and just sat on that bench and stared at the clump of bamboo for as long as I could
- Giving up beer at 18Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young Buddhist student who loved beer, Ajahn Brahm was told by his teacher that he shouldn't drink. He tried giving it up and felt a great sense of power — he had a choice…
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that's what I did, when I was a young man, I was a Buddhist and my teacher kept on telling me: ‘You shouldn't drink alcohol’. I liked my beer, I didn't like the other stuff, but beer, I used to love beer. And he said: ‘No, you can't take that anymore, you're a Buddhist, you meditate. ‘Do I really have to?’ He said: ‘yes, you do’, so I said: ‘okay I'll give it a try.’ And as soon as I tried it, just giving up beer, I felt this great sense of power inside of me. It was like I had the choice and I was exercising the choice. I could take it or leave it, I was proving to myself I could leave it. And I could go into a party and still enjoy myself and have… Actually, I found out it was more fun when I was sober. Okay, I was only 18-19 at the time. The best time at a party, when you find a nice girl, you’re in the corner, messing around… when I used to have beer and alcohol, I didn't remember that part. [laughter] And that was the best part. And when I was sober, I had much more fun. And so little things like that, ordinary things, meant you started to enjoy yourself more. Which meant, what's the point of going back to alcohol? And I was a student at the time it cost so much money, I had so much more money to use for other things.
- Saturn's rings after 2001: A Space OdysseyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After watching 2001: A Space Odyssey as a student, he cycles with friends to an old Astronomical Society observatory; the dome opens and through the huge telescope they see…
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2001 A Space Odyssey is a really freaky film. And after seeing 2001 A Space Odyssey, then I was a member of the Astronomical Society. And they had all these old observatories, just like you see in the movies, these big domes with incredible powerful telescopes. And because I was a member, I told my friends, "Hey, we can just go and have a look." That was no part of being a member. So we cycled and cycled. I was very healthy in those days. Cycled out outside to the observatory. And that was the thing they found Pluto, Uranus on that observatory, but it was just out of date now. But anyway, we got in there, we uh somebody said, "Oh, yes, a really good time." This is 11:00, 12:00 at night after the movie. And they said that you can see Saturn was up there. And so you could go in this this chair and this huge long telescope and just the the hemisphere dome of the observatory would open. And it just had atmosphere. I know there's some people have these tiny telescopes, you can see much more, but that's got no atmosphere. This was like something out of a science fiction movie. You could actually see Saturn with its rings in huge magnification
- She failed her exams — and blamed the monkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A first-year Malaysian student asks Ajahn Brahm to chant for her exams. Later her friends tell him she's going round the university saying he's a hopeless monk — because she…
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Malaysian girl, though she came to me to do some chanting, she was doing her uh, I forget, first, second, third year university exams or whatever it was. And she said: “Can you do some chanting? Got my exams next week.” So I chanted chanted chanted really give everything I’ve got for exams, and afterwards, She never came back. I never saw her again. But some of her friends came and told me, said she's going around turning all of her friends: “Ajahn Brahm is a bad monk. Ajahn Brahm is no good
- The Cavendish warrenStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young Cambridge student he enters the Cavendish Laboratory warren — alleys, rooms, history including J.J. Thomson discovering the electron.
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Caendish laboratory, and it was just an amazing experience going in this this old laboratory where so much stuff had happened. It was a warren of alleys and little rooms where someone in one of those rooms was inventing the time machine and no one knew what they were doing. These old professors no one had seen someone was inventing a laser or and had all this incredible history behind it. JJ Thompson had discovered the electron