Stories for work stress
6 Buddhist wisdom stories for work stress from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- “If you're going to sweep, give it everything you've got”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A busy Sydney man flies to remote north-east Thailand just to ask Ajahn Chah his life questions, but after hours waiting among 200 people he gives up. With an hour to kill, he…
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He lived in Sydney. He came to see me in Perth and no one else knows his story except him because it's a personal story which changed his life. He told it to me, I share with other people. When the great Ajanchar in Thailand started to become famous, this guy in Sydney heard this and he wanted to ask a real wise person these important questions he had in life. And so he traveled all the way from Sydney to Thailand not to go to any hotel or resort just to see Ajancha, ask the questions and come back home again. A very busy man, big family. So he finally found the way to the northeast of Thailand, which is quite remote, and find where this monk lived, find in the monastery where his hut was. And he succeeded. He saw this great monk surrounded by about 200 people, all wanting to ask their questions. And he waited and waited and waited and he wasn't getting anywhere closer. If ever that happens to me, please Buddhist society, buy a machine, take your number. And so I say, calling number 64, please come up to ask your question. Have you been to those places where they give you numbers and they have to wait until your number comes up? I did that about two months ago. I went to get my visa to go to Indonesia and I was waiting. I got a ticket and I was waiting there for 1 hour and then I had to go for lunch. So never got my ticket. uh answered. Anyway, I actually gave it to somebody else cuz I was ahead of them. I have my ticket. That's very nice. If you have these tickets, don't screw up. Give them to somebody else. It was really nice. Anyway, what was I going on about asking questions? Yeah, he was surrounded by all these people. So, this guy's waiting a couple of hours, two and a half hours, getting no closer. So, he he gave up, came all that way just for seeing the monk, and he realized there's no way he could see him. And so he was walking to his uh taxi to take him back to the airport to go back to Bangkok to fly back to Sydney and he realized he had another hour to kill and he saw the other monks were sweeping doing some cleaning in the temple. Now remember, if you volunteer to do some cleaning in any temple, even this one, it's amazing the karmic, the good karma you get, just washing up the dishes on a Friday evening, sweeping, tidying up the chairs. You wouldn't believe the amazing good karma you get by helping out the temple. So what he did, he saw them sweeping. He picked up a boom. He started sweeping too. He was sweeping, sweeping only for five or 10 minutes and he said he felt a hand on his shoulder. And when you feel know someone behind you putting the hand on your shoulder, you turn around abruptly and that hand was connected to an arm and that arm was connected to Ajancha. Wow. Now, those of you who have lived with these monks, you know that they do have powers. They know what's going on. He realized this guy had come a long way and had to go home soon. So, he was actually got up from his seat. Even though the other people waiting to talk to him, went up and wanted to give this guy a teaching and the teaching was this a oneliner which changed this guy's whole life. He said after this oneliner he went back his business really flourished his family life was great his meditation really soared everything in life just got so much better from this one line teaching said if you're going to sweep give it everything you've got that's all and then he went away
- “Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy; thinking about it is the hard part”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah asks the young monks to move a mountain of leftover earth; three days of gruelling work on one meal a day. While Ajahn Chah is away the deputy says it's in the wrong…
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My teacher Ajahn Chah had just built his hall. And there was lots of earth left over. And instead of paying people or getting earth movers to move the earth, why pay money when you've got so many slaves. Like me, young monks. In those days I was fit, I was healthy, I was handsome. Not fat and old like today. But I didn't mind helping a teacher. It was like gratitude when someone had helped you so much, you just please give me something to do, I just want to help you. And so he asked us to please move this earth, all the leftover earth to put in the place around the back. Now that was not easy. It was three days of hard slog. We'd only eat one meal a day. And you really couldn't even call it a meal. It was just subsistence rations. Just sticky rice with a frog on the top. That was one of the meals. It was rotten fish curry, it stank. It was… that's what we had to eat. Because this is what the villagers ate. There was snail soup. I remember the snail soup that was just so disgusting. Because the snails are so chewy. You know, just it's really hard to break them up. You know like those rubbers you use to erase pencils that's what it was like it reminded me of. That was one of the common ones. Or the fried crickets, the bugs, the ant soup and egg soup was very common. Or buffalo afterbirth. That was vegetarian food. Think about it. It doesn't harm the animal at all. It's just extra. But anyway, really gross food. And then from nine o'clock on till about ten o'clock in the evening shoveling earth into the wheelbarrows, pushing it you know to where it's needed to go. A huge amount of three days work. And it was so hot. It was in the jungle. And there was so many mosquitoes. And it was so tiring. You didn't have time to have dinner. There wasn't any lunch or any afternoon snacks or dinner. We only had one meal a day. Wow! Even prisoners of war never had to work that hard. And I had faith. After three days it was all finished. But you can imagine how dirty you felt, how sweaty. All your robes stank and just, you know you didn't have time for a shower. As soon as you got back to your hut you just collapsed. And you woke up in the morning, alms around, have a quick meal and bound moving the earth again. Three days of really really hard work. But it was finished and when I went to bed after the third day I thought “great! Tomorrow I can have a really good wash and wash my robes and do some meditation, just relax a bit.” but that night my master Ajahn Chah, he went to visit another monastery. Just like I'm doing tomorrow. We do those things. We visit each other, help each other out. And that morning after our breakfast, the deputy monk, he made in the announcement. He said “I've been thinking of where we put that earth. It's the wrong place,” he said. We need to move it. And you know he, that deputy monk, he never pushed a wheelbarrow. Never touched it. He was one of the bosses. You know what bosses are like. They always tell you what to do but they never do anything themselves. All full of ideas but no experience. So three more days of hard work in the jungle pushing those wheelbarrows, shoveling the earth. But I still had faith. After six days it was finished. Because the deputy monk had a point, you know. Well it was almost in the wrong place. And that night, guess what happened? Ajahn Chah came back. And the following morning after breakfast he said “I told you to put it over here. Why'd you put it over there? Move it! And it was at that point I lost my faith. I never became a monk to move wheelbarrows of earth. I came to meditate, become enlightened, you know, learn the Dhamma and… that's what I was a monk for. Not as a laborer. Not as a slave. I got very angry. And you know I did say I think in the book, it's absolutely true. You did start to swear. In English thinking that you know, the Thai monks couldn't understand you. But of course they understood. The body language showed you're really really unhappy. And that I was stressed out. I was angry. For a good reason you're being exploited. You've been taken advantage of. I was so angry and upset. And that's when one of the Thai monks came up to me and he said something which I will never forget which I've shared with thousands of people. One of the great ways of overcoming stress in life. He said to me: “pushing the wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is a hard part.” you know, that was worth all of that torture. Just to learn that. Pushing the wheelbarrow is a hard part. Going to work with a terrible boss that's easy. Thinking about it is a problem. Having to do all of that job being the president of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia it's easy. Thinking about it is a hard part. And of course once I got it straight away you know that the rest of the three days went really quick. And it was fun. You know we'd have races with the other monks, you got there first. And if they beat me you know, just for a bit of revenge you know, shoveling the next bit of earth and it was oh just sorry, sorry that's of I… I didn't get it in the wheelbarrow. Got it all over your face. Shoveling over each other. Just a bit of fun and games playing around. And that was really good fun. After nine days it was finished.
- “Thank you for the car park”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After lunch at Bodhinyana a stranger turns out to be the Serpentine-Jarrahdale Shire building surveyor who signed off all the monastery's plans. On his last day before retiring…
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that over in Bodhinyana monastery, over in Serpentine, I was just sitting there after lunch receiving guests, and this gentleman came up I’ve never seen before (but I remembered his voice for a strange reason), and I find out after he told me that he was the local building surveyor at the Shire of Serpentine-Jarrahdale. So every building which we applied for permission for, he'll be the one who looks at it and checks that it fulfils all of the regulations and ticks it off. And I asked him: 'What are you doing here' and he said that he's not come to check up on anything, because this was his last day at work in that job, he was retiring that afternoon - but he said he came here to thank me for the car park. I felt really weird, ‘thanking me for the car park, what are you talking about?’ And he said to me that he wasn't a Buddhist, he didn't know how to meditate - but - every time he got stressed out at work, he simply got into his car, drove to the monastery in Serpentine and parked his car in the car park, and just sat there maybe 15 minutes or half an hour. And then, afterwards, he felt so much better, he went back to work
- The letter that wouldn't comeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Tired one morning, Ajahn Brahm struggles at the computer over a very difficult letter about a published book — every draft seems wrong. So he stops, goes to meditate, takes a…
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that I had to write a very difficult letter (this is about a book which was published). And this morning I was a little bit tired, and so, when I was trying to write that letter - have you ever had that experience, you're on the computer, you’re trying to write a letter, it just doesn't come out. You're writing, ‘that doesn't seem good, that doesn't seem good, that doesn't seem good’. You're wasting so much time. And again, just as I taught many of you, if you're in the office, at work, you've got some report to write, some letter to write, some really sensitive letter to write, and it doesn't come out, then stop. And go meditate. That's exactly what I did. Went off to meditate, took a shower, went back to the computer and a beautiful letter came out
- What drug is he giving you?Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A high-flying Sydney executive has to beg and grovel to her boss for time off for a nine-day retreat at Jhana Grove. Afterwards she emails Ajahn Brahm: as soon as she got back,…
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This lady from Australian girl from Sydney, one of these high executives. When she came, she said, "I had to beg and crawl and grovel from my boss to get the time off." But then she sent me this email after the 9-day retreat had finished and she said, "AJ, as soon as I got back to work, my boss took one look at me." And she he said to me, "Look, I don't care what drug Ajan Brah is giving you, but please bring me back some next time." She looks so peaceful and happy. It's weird.
- “You're a much better mum when you come home”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A tired mother tells her children she will skip the meditation group; her daughter insists she go, because she is a much better mum afterwards.
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Many times when I've been teaching meditation, especially down at Armadale, I don't know why this happens always in Armadale group. In Armadale group, sometimes after the meditation, talking to people afterwards, and very often people say, "You know, this evening, I never wanted to come." "It's Tuesday evening, I've been at work, and I'm tired, and I told my kids I'm not going this evening, and my daughter said, 'Mommy, you must go to meditation.' I said, 'I don't feel like it darling, I'm tired.' 'Mommy, you must go to meditation!' 'No, not this evening.' 'Mommy, go to meditation!!' 'Why darling?' 'Because you're a much nicer mommy when you come back.'