Stories for wanting more
3 Buddhist wisdom stories for wanting more from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- One buffalo, or wanting twoStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Living among subsistence farmers in north-east Thailand, young Ajahn Brahm wonders why some equally poor villagers are happy and others miserable. Every house has a water…
Read full story
But one of the things which I did notice living in that village. yeah sure many of those poor people were happier than the people I knew sort of from the great university like Cambridge I also saw some miserable people in that village. When I saw those miserable people in that village I wanted to find out why some people were miserable other people were happy when they both had very few things. and I found out that basically it worked out like this Every house had a water buffalo which they used to plough the fields. and the dung from the water buffalo would be the fertilizer for their fields The buffalo would plough their fields and do all sorts of tasks like pulling the cart and that was a very important part of their house But I noticed the farmers who had say one water buffalo and happy with one water buffalo seem to be the ones always smiling But the farmer who had one water buffalo but wanted two that was the farmer who was unhappy. who didn't seem to have so much time and so much joy in their lives Seemed to me that happiness was not so much how much you have but how much you want.
- The hundred-baht wish listStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A grateful Thai supporter who knows the rules offers the young monk a 'mendicant allowance' of 100 baht for anything he personally wants. His mind goes blank, so he asks for a…
Read full story
Cos that happened to me many years ago, maybe over thirty years ago in Thailand, I had helped a man with some problems, and he was very grateful, he knew the rules, cos he was a Thai, been around the forest tradition a long time, so he came up to me and asked me, "Is there anything I can get for you? Just for you, not for the temple, one hundred baht." That's thirty-seven years ago, and these days, it's only worth about two or three dollars, but that to me was a lot of money. So you know, my mind went blank, as it often does, maybe I meditate too much, I don't know. But anyway, I couldn't think. And he was getting very impatient, and he had his work to go to. I came up with an idea, I said to him, "Why don't you come tomorrow morning? Tonight I'll think about what I want, and I'll write it down and give it to you tomorrow." He said, "Good idea - I'll be here about the same time tomorrow." So that night, after the evening meeting, chanting and meditation, I went back to my room, I lit a candle, cos there's no electricity - and I got out a old piece of paper and a pen, so I started thinking, "what do I want?" Straight away the pencil broke, so I said, actually - I need, not pencils, pencils are hopeless, I need like a pen. just a simple, biro pen or something. And as for the piece of paper, it's just a scrap piece of paper, I need a little exercise book - you know, nothing fancy, just a little exercise book, and also you know the candle is very, very difficult to write, it's bad for your eyes, just you know, reading or writing by candle light. What I wanted is one of these little oil lamps, little lamps you know, you see maybe on the boats, over here in Australia, just a little oil lamp, and a bit of kerosene, and talking about lights, my flash light was really terrible, and I needed a new flash light, and some batteries - and I put all of those things down. I suddenly realised one hundred baht, was not enough. And you know, it was so difficult to actually take any of those things off the list now, Cos now I thought about it, I don't know how I survived without them. I mean how can you survive, you know, and actually I needed some new sandals, you know, if I'm going to be walking through those forests, I needed some more new sandals, and actually talking about pieces of paper, I really needed to write to my family, I needed these aerograms. And soon, a thousand bahts was not enough. And every one of those items I put on the list, now was so important to me, I just could not scratch any one off. And that's when I had the insight, I realised what's this thing was doing to me. At that point, I screwed up that piece of paper, and I threw it in the waste bin, this little spittoon we had. And the following day, when that man came, I scolded him, "Don't you ever do that to me ever again. I was such a happy monk, before you gave me one hundred dollars. Or a hundred baht, now I had all these desires."
- The mango tree with no mangoesAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A king sees two mango trees — one laden, one bare — and almost curses the bare one. Returning for fruit he finds soldiers have stripped and ruined the laden tree; the bare tree…
Read full story
one of the kings in his Buddhist story he went went this is in the time of the Buddha he went with his soldiers to train and as he was coming back to his Palace after doing the training he saw two mango trees one of those mango trees had so many ripe mangoes on them the other tree had no mangoes at all and he thought what's the point of being a mango tree if you don't have any mangoes so he almost cursed that mango tree with no mangoes and the tree with lots of mangoes he thought that when I finished and got back to the palace and got changed I'll come out and enjoy some of these R mangoes that's what he did so he changed and got on his horse and came out to taste some of those right mangoes and only then he saw that his soldiers who's helping train they never bothered to get changed they stripped that mango tree which had the mangoes of every fruit which was on there and as they were stripping every mango they broke so many branches and stripped off so many leaves that mango tree which was once full of succulent mangoes was actually destroyed he looked at the mango tree which had no mangoes and that's the still had all its branches and leaves intact and he thought I'm going to renounce being a king if you have power and wealth there's other people who want it isn't it more happy to be someone who has enough to live but not too much so other people will never want to break into your house they never want to steal anything that's just like Monastery you know right now where I live the door of my coutti is open I never locked it this after oh it's actually this morning when I left bodana to come here my cave those doors are open too there's nothing in there just space there emptiness who can steal emptiness we can't st