Vultures of metaphysics

Related stories

• “Take them out one by one”

  In brief: Asked by Fr Frank Brennan how to deal with troublesome fundamentalists, Abbot Placid of New Norcia shocks the room with “Take them out one…

  Read full story▾▴

  I remember at a conference at UWA it was actually Father Frank Brennan was there, the Jesuit priest. He asked this question, he said, "I do work in universities." "I so easily get on with Buddhists, with Hindus, with Jewish, all religions." The only difficulty he has is with the born-again, the fundamentalists, the sort-of Charismatic Christians. He asked Abbot Placid, not me, he said "What would you be your advice to deal with the Charismatic Christians, the real troublemakers?" Abbot Placid said, "Take them out one by one." An outrageous thing for an abbot to say. [laughter] Ajahn: He had a great sense of humor. But then he said afterwards, "Deal with them later on, singly, one by one."

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• The 'fearless' monk on the burning bus

  In brief: During a spate of deadly bus fires in north-east Thailand, someone on Ajahn Brahm's bus shouts “fire!”; the driver leaps out the window…

  Read full story▾▴

  In Thailand many years ago when I was there about five years as a monk, that all the buses in the Northeast were very old, 'cause they just tried to use them until they could literally not to run anymore, so they're very old buses. And it happened that one bus caught fire because it wasn't well maintained, and actually people got incinerated inside. I don't know why it was, but one bus after another, it was a whole spate of these buses suddenly catching fire. I know one of the monks I was practicing with in the monastery, he was actually on one those buses, he managed to get out but I think his bowl and his robes all got burnt in the fire and he got some compensation from the bus company. That's how dangerous it was. I was on one of these buses once. As a monk they always put you in the front seat, you know why that is, so that you can stop people having head-on collisions because you've got good kamma, you protect all the people around the back. But .... There was a fire in the back and they shouted out "fire, fire," and the bus driver slammed on the brakes, you almost went through the window but you managed to stop yourself, so he slammed on the brakes, and he was out the window himself. And all the people, they rushed out of the door. And it was actually another monk with me, now as a monk we're not supposed to get in contact with women, and nuns are not supposed to get in contact with men. So there were women on the bus, but this monk sitting next to me, he didn't mind, he was out. But I was a very well-behaved monk and let the other people go out first of all, you know I was brought up in England being a gentleman. [laughter] But most of the reason why I didn't get out was 'cause my Thai wasn't that good, I wondered what all the commotion was about, 'cause I didn't understand "fire," and I hadn't read the newspapers of how many people got killed. So I just sat there quite peacefully and actually I was... I wasn't the last one out, I was the second last one out because it was another man who lingered in the back, and he looked, there was only a small amount of smoke, and he shouted out to the other people, everyone was out except me and this guy, and he said, "It's only a cigarette, it's not a real fire, just cigarette smoke." So when people heard that, they put the cigarette out, and everyone started coming in, I was sitting in the front seat, and they said, "Oh, the saint, the arahant, the holy enlightened Western monk. Oh, you're so wonderful, you had no fear," not like that the other scalawag monk who ran out and touched all of us. [laughter] That was a wonderful moment for me but to be honest, I wasn't a hero I was just stupid 'cause I didn't know what was going on.

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• The man who wouldn't drop his hemp

  In brief: Two men go to an abandoned region to scavenge. Both bundle up hemp. Finding hemp cloth, one throws his hemp away and takes the cloth; the…

  Read full story▾▴

  There's one of the old Buddhist stories—this is a story from the Digha Nikaya—where two men went out to an abandoned region where people have migrated, to see if they'd left anything of value which they could bring home for which they could make some money. As they went out to that abandoned village, one person found some old hemp, and told his friend so they made a big bundle of hemp to carry back to the village—it was worth something. And on the way, one of them noticed that there was some cloth made of hemp. He said, "This is what the hemps is for: to make cloth," so he threw away his bundle of hemp and took up the cloth. The other guy said, "No, this is already packed up. This is good enough for me." He didn't want to change. And then, later on, they found some cotton cloth. He said, "Cotton cloth is more important than my hemp cloth, so I'm going to throw out my hemp cloth and take the cotton cloth." The other guy said, "No, this hemp is good enough for me." And then they found some silk. One guy through away the cotton cloth and got some silk. The other guy—still with the pieces of hemp on his head—said, "No, this will do for me." One person was always willing to change for something better. And then after they found some silk, they found some silver. So he threw away his silk and took some silver. And eventually they found some gold, so he threw away the silver to take the gold. And when they arrived back home, one had a whole pack of gold, the other one had some hemp. And the beautiful way the Buddha told this story, he said, "The one who brought the hemp back brought no happiness to his family and got scolded by them. And the one who brought the gold back was welcomed with a lot of smiles by his family.

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• The dog, the lion and the monkey

  In brief: A dog wanders too far into an African forest and a lion decides to eat him. The dog finds some bones, sits with his back to the lion and,…

  Read full story▾▴

  once upon a time there was a dog who went for a walk in the forest in Africa and he walked a bit too far because a lion saw him and the lion thought that dog will make a good dinner and a dog heard that. How could a dog escape from a lion? But this dog, he must have listened to some of the the uh YouTube talks from here because he was a very very smart dog. I'm sure he was a Buddhist. So what he did, he managed to find some bones and he sat in front of the bones with his back towards the lion totally unafraid. And as the lion was about to pounce, the dog licked his lips and said, "M, what a delicious meal. These lions are very, very tasty. I wonder when I can get my next lion to eat. And the lion heard that, thought, "My goodness, that must be a really vicious dog. He's eaten another lion. I'm not going to be his dinner." And so the lion turned around and ran away. But there was a monkey and that monkey saw that that conversation and he said, "I'm not going to let the dog get away with tricking this lion." So he went up to the line and said, "You've been tricked. you're a fool. You know, this dog, you know, can't eat lions. You know, he just said this to scare you away. And so the lion got very upset and said, "I'm going to go and eat that dog." And the monkey said, "I can't come with you to watch." So the monkey jumped on the lion's back and the lion went straight towards the dog and the dog saw them coming. So he went in front of the pile of bones again with his back towards the lion and the monkey on the back. And as they came close, the dog licked his lips again and he said, "Where's that damn monkey? He promised he'd bring me another lion.

  Open story page·Watch this telling