Stories for trauma
10 Buddhist wisdom stories for trauma from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Drawn out of catatonia by kindness (a dream)Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk Ajahn Brahm dreams vividly of being tortured and retreating into a deep catatonic place for years, until a carer's kind words make him trust the world again and…
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I remember as a young monk, I had this dream once. The very powerful dream, which I remember it so well. And I remember just dreaming that I was being tortured. Don't know whether it is a past life, but it was very vivid, being tortured by people stabbing me and it hurts so much. And I went to a deep place inside myself, just to escape the pain. It's the only place I could find and it's a quite strange dream because I dreamt I was catatonic for years. Alive, but not being able to respond like in a coma. And what took me out was just these beautiful kind words, from a carer in some institution somewhere who was so kind that I trusted the world again, and allowed myself to be drawn out back into life. It's a weird dream. But what it actually showed me was the way that we hide because of the great pain of life, sometimes it gets so painful either physically or emotionally, we literally cannot take any more. We go into some sort of hiding place. Now for me, and that dream was just in a deep, deep catatonia where I would not respond to anything in the world. Or it could be just with the other protective mechanisms of unwilling to show any empathy and being violent, used to protect yourself. And the only way out was incredible kindness, which you know to me, and also in Buddhist ideas, is the power which nothing can resist. Incredible kindness, just drawing you out, from a place, a hiding place built by fear, coming out into the world, again, being alive again. It's only a dream but it was very meaningful for me.
- Paddington crash — those who skipped counselling did betterStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Paddington rush-hour crash; free counselling offered; follow-up finds (adjusted for severity) those who declined counselling often fared better — anecdote on not forcing talk.
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Paddington Station there was a fault in the signals and an incoming uh rush hour train uh slammed into an outgoing train. They were on the same track. These sorts of things should never happen, but of course Murphy's law always happens. If it can happen, it does happen. Rarely. So, there was this huge train crash outside of Paddington Station. Many people died and more people were injured. And many people were traumatized witnessing this. But the interesting part of this anecdote was that you know the British government they did offer free counseling to anybody who was involved in that tragedy. And then some very smart psychologists they did a follow-up. They got as many people as they could who'd been through that counseling. And those people who refused to go through the counseling. It was all offered to them for free. And of course they adjusted their findings to you know how seriously they were injured or how close they were to that tragedy, what they actually saw. And their results were so convincing. The people who depe
- Paṭācārā, who lost everythingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Paṭācārā, from a good family, runs away with her low-born lover. Pregnant, she tries to return to her parents to give birth but delivers on the way; the second time too. Her…
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But I always tell them about one of the greatest nuns that ever was. Her name was Patara. And her story was that she'd run away with her lover. She came from a very good family. Her lover I think was just a lowborn. But they loved each other were both very good. And eventually she had a child and they thought if they go back to their parents' house, you know, when they just let themelves or let them her give birth in her parents' house, that would actually make the parents a bit more amunable to her husband. But they she gave birth on the way. So they went straight back to their village. And so they tried that a second time. And again she gave a like a few days premature birth and I was in the forest and after the new baby was born. Her husband who you know just really looked after her, loved her to bits, went looking for some wood to keep her warm and took a piece of wood but it was a snake and the snake bit him and he died. So, so she'd just given birth to her second child and now she lost her husband, Snakebite. So, she decided she had to go back to see her parents. No husband had died. She had two kids. But then she had to cross a big stream which was in flood and she had like a two or three year old kid and a new baby. What should she do? So she put the baby or she put the the told the new kid no told her two or three year old son you wait on this bank and I'll wade across the stream with the new baby and then I'll put the baby down on the other side and come for you and if I if you see me waving or something then just come straight away. So she got across the stream with her new kid, put the kid down sort of in a safe place on the dry bank, and then waited back again to get her elder son. But as she was midstream, she saw a big eagle come and swoop on her little baby. And of course, she was frantic. She waved her hands around trying to scare the bird away. But instead, the bird wasn't scared. She was in the middle of the stream. So, the bird took away her baby. And her 2-year-old kid thought mommy was calling him and weded into the river and got swept away. So, now she lost two kids. And if that wasn't bad enough, when she was trying to make her way back to her village that she heard from somebody there had been a big storm in that village the night before and her two parents had been killed in the storm. She'd lost her two children, parents and her husband on the same day. Now you can imagine what grief does to you. She went mad, crazy. She didn't know what to do, where to go. But eventually, she wandered into the temple totally naked and screaming her head off. And she when she walked into the temple, the Buddha was giving a sermon. And so people there at the edge of the the crowd, the congregation, the audience said, "You can't come in here. You're badly dressed. you're crazy. But the Buddha said, "No, let her in." You know, she was a young woman, you know, just given birth to a couple of children, maybe in her 20ies, and the Buddha out of kindness said, "Let her in." And one of the monks got his robe and put it around her so she was a little bit more uh decent. And that was the start of Patara's um entry into being a a nun. And one of the reasons I tell that story as a great tragedy, great grief. But then that nun became one of the most famous teachers in the whole of the nuns community. cuz this is just not what other people tell me cuz I remember just reading all these stories of great nuns in the time of the Buddha. And I think many of you may be able to relate to this. Sometimes you've been meditating and meditating and meditating and practicing going on retreats but sometimes you're getting nowhere. You feel my meditation a brah talks about these nimitas and janna and stuff like that. I've got nowhere near that. Why not? And this was some of the nuns were like that. And then they said, you know, in their little record of their enlightenment that this great nun came and taught them how to meditate. And they were just enlightened within a few days. And that nun's name was Patara. That was her amazing teacher.
- Still in the POW campStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Two Australian veterans who were captured at the fall of Singapore and held in prisoner-of-war camps meet at a reunion. One asks the other whether he has forgiven the Japanese…
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this was the story of those two Australian soldiers meeting together in a reunion, they'd both been in the Second World War, they'd both been in Singapore, the fall of Singapore, and both been put in P.O.W. camps. Well, one met the other, and said, "Have you forgiven the Japanese yet for what they did to us and our friends?" "No! Never! How can you forgive that??" said one of the soldiers. "What about you?" His friend said, "I forgave years ago. But you, my friend, are still in the P.O.W. camp." I love that story, simply because until you forgive -- until he forgave what those guards, those soldiers, did to him and his friends, in the camps in Changi on the Death Railway in Thailand on the Burmese border. Until they forgave, they were still being tortured. They're still in the camps. They can never be happy. His friend had let go and therefore he was free.
- The bear attack and the sapling in her headStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A nun, before ordaining, is meditating outside a Himalayan cave when a bear clamps its jaws on her head; she chants, and the bear lets go. She felt no pain — the worst part was…
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one of the nuns i think i forget where she is now that you know she came to visit once and she told the story before she was a monk and none other that she was trekking in himalayas with her a boyfriend and they just rested a nice little place to rest in front of a cave and she arrested she made it started meditating in front of the cave and her boyfriend meditated on top of the cave and then the bear came out and you know these bears they just attack you they said this bear attacked her and says put his really big bear his uh jaws on her head trying to crush her skull i mean that was just really serious stuff and then she remembered some of her buddhist chanting and started doing chanting because you know what else to do screaming for her boyfriend to help you know she'd learn from her past i was not going to help at all so anyway she started doing some chanting another bear for some reason or another just opened its uh jaws and ran away so she was actually saved of course she was bleeding heavily and then they took her to the nearest village to get some medical attention but i remember asking her did it hurt having the bear you know almost crushed your head and she said no it didn't feel any pain at all the worst part of the experience was the bear's bad breath because bears don't brush their teeth after they he anything it was disgusting she said and so she recovered but also afterwards that she had a headache for years and so after a while you know she went to the doctor and said where's his headache coming from never had a headache there before so they gave her not the cat scan of last week i mean a real ct scan of her brain and this is no exaggeration what they found in there there was a small tree sapling growing in her brain what had happened is when the bear sort of tried to crush her head with his teeth one of the teeth had a little seedling in from where the bear was eating and it actually implanted the seedling in her bed in her head there's only a small seedling but they could see that that was a reason for a headache very simple operation to you know keyhole surgery and took the the seeding out and she was fine afterwards so that's one of the dangers of being attacked by bears they implant trees
- The ex-Marine monk who caught his fits earlyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk friend, shot in the head as a US Marine in Vietnam, has epileptic fits from the brain injury. Over a couple of years of mindfulness he learns to sense the build-up earlier…
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one of my friends who was a monk many years ago. He was in the US Marines in the Vietnam War He had because he was shot in the back of the head And had some brain damage Otherwise is a wonderful monk very kind, but he had epileptic fits because of the injury being shortened though in a head how he dealt with his epileptics have hits similar way to overcome the panic attacks Because he was aware Mindful he could actually catch those fits Earlier and earlier and earlier he could see the signs. He could be aware to see how it works because The fits never just came out of the blue they had the introduction of the little bits getting more tense more tense he could actually feel it coming It took for a couple of years before he could catch it early enough He could take another path Relax used to go to his room darken the room just lay down and just relaxed as much as he could and then after a while no more epileptic fits
- The log that was a crocodileStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A Sri Lankan man fed the fish in a lagoon with a slice of bread every morning on his way to work, and when a crocodile appeared he fed it a slice too, every day. One morning the…
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There was a uh a Sri Lankan man who would go every morning to a little lagoon on his way to work with a couple of slices of bread to feed the fish. Then one day a crocodile came. And so he fed the crocodile a slice of bread, too. And this crocodile just came every day from that time on to get a slice of bread from this guy. I don't crocodile alligator, might get that one wrong. But anyway, he went there one morning to feed the fish and this crocodile, and that was when the big wave came. And he got swept out to sea. And he said he tried to hang on to to a chair or something which was floating, but the current was so strong it dragged him the chair away from him. The next thing he saw was a log of wood. He grabbed onto that and he could hold onto it. And he was so incredibly confused. It's a true story. They didn't It took him a while to realize all the other stuff was being swept out to sea, but the log of wood was going the opposite direction to the shore. And it got him so close to the shore he could jump off the log of wood and grab onto the bank and escape with his life. Then he looked at that log of wood. It wasn't a log of wood. It was this crocodile that saved him. Or it could be, for those of you who are cynical, the crocodile realized if that man dies, there'll be no more bread.
- The nail that didn't hurt until someone said soStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On alms round in Thailand Ajahn Brahm steps on a nail that goes a couple of inches into his foot. It doesn't hurt — until the monk with him says, “Oh, that's terrible.” Then it…
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stepping on a nail - it went about two inches into my foot! It's a long way, a big 4 inch nail, it went right inside my foot! It didn't hurt at all! until somebody said "Wow that's terrible!!" and as soon as they said that it started to hurt
- The truckload of dungAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: You come home to find a truckload of manure dumped in front of your door. You didn't order it and no one saw the truck, so you're stuck with it. You can carry it around in your…
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because that was relating to a particular story that if you do have shit happens to you in life, you can dig it in and you can make these beautiful things out of the most unpleasant aspects of your life, there's always something you can do. Now I use that as an extreme example to show that when these things happen to you or happen nationally, the law of kamma means stop thinking why this happened and do something about it. Dig it in, yeah, it's tough to do, but the alternative which is in that story "who ordered the truckload of dung", is people carry the shit around with them in their pockets. And you find if you carry dung and smelly shit in your pockets or your bags you lose a lot of friends, and you understand what I mean by this.. When people really get depressed, angry and upset about what happens to them in life, no one likes to be around you, that's not the way to deal with these problems
- The twin who forgave at AuschwitzStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm recalls an article about a woman who, as an identical twin at Auschwitz, was subjected to the experiments of Dr Mengele's team; as he tells it, her twin sister was…
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remember reading this article [snorts] about a lady and one of these articles which really moved me that she was in Awitz. [snorts] When she was in Awitz, she was there because she was a younger uh sister of a twin. And when they discovered they were identical twins, they're so not younger sister but identical twin. They were forced to go on this program of experimentation. I think the name of the doctor at the time, Dr. Mangali, I think it was this was doc, one of Dr. Mangali's assistants, she remembered as her sister, the other twin was basically just treated so badly and tortured and killed. as an experiment. His other sister survived and after many many many years she discovered the location of one of the doctors who had helped Dr. Mangali and according to the story which she wrote she invited the person who had basically tortured and killed and her sister to meet her in Awitz. This is a true story. when he met them there sort of she forgave him say said look I've been I found you and I've been hating you and hating what happened to my sister all my life now you're here I don't want to be a victim anymore I want to be a victor so she forgave