The only child killed on Albany Highway

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• The storm and the green leaves

  In brief: A forest monk in northern Thailand survives a night of falling trees in his flimsy hut; next morning he sees that the storm tore down…

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  The answer which, I got for that, I got from a monk, an old monk who's living in the jungle, who was one of these people who was still enough to listen to the teachings from the nature, from around us Brilliant teachings. And I tell this every time I have to do a funeral service for someone who is young. I tell this, and many people get it, they understand "Ahh, I understand now". And it was, this monk was in a very simple hut, in the north of Thailand, and when I talk about simple, I really mean simple, just made out of bamboo and thatch for the roof, and thatch for the walls as well: really simple to put up, very natural, very easy. And you know, he'd go on alms round every morning to the local village, live a very very frugal, peaceful life, but very very happy. But living in the jungle, there are such things as storms, and if a storm comes when you're in the middle of the forest, and you haven't got much protection, it is very dangerous. Trees come down, or even big branches! And imagine, just visualize a bamboo and thatch hut, if a decent size branch hits that roof, it just goes straight through. Not like metal roofs, or these, uhh, roofs which are engineered so that almost like an Elephant could fall on this roof and it wouldn't go through. Otherwise we wouldn’t get planing permission and building permission, not that an elephant would actually fall on this roof, but you never know (Laughs) So, so over engineered, for safety. But anyway, so, it was such a flimsy dwelling, that one branch could go through and it would... if you didn't actually get crushed you'd get injured, break a leg, break an arm, and remember this is simple living, you don't have mobile phones, you don't... you know even if you did have one, there would be no telecommunications tower there, there's no one you can call, no one can help you if you break a leg, that's probably worse than dying instantly you just die slowly. So it was very dangerous! So he was up all night, hearing the... THUUUDD! BANG! (Hits Table) WHA... oops, WHACK actually that hurt (Laughs) That didn't work as I expected it to. I always say that when you give a public talk, do some special effects (Laughs) Cause you know what happens when people talk, talk, talk, you know, they fall asleep they get bored. It is something like, special like raise your voice, or go BANG! or WOFF! then actually, you know, people actually enjoy it in weird ways. Anyway, so BANG!, WHACK! All these trees where THUDDING next to him. And so, you know, it was very difficult to meditate And he was up all night, but, you know, he survived If he didn't survive he wouldn’t be able to tell me the tale. He survived the night. And in the morning He walked outside, to see the damage; And yeah, several big trees Just missed his hut, he was lucky to be alive! But it wasn't the trees which grabbed his attention, what he saw was the leaves on the forest floor. Most of the leaves which had been torn off the trees and laid dead on the forest floor, where the old, brown leaves. But amongst those old brown leaves there where several yellow leaves, even a few green leaves. And some of those green leaves where so freshly green, they could have only been alive for a few hours, and now they laid dead on the forest floor. Before he completed his insight, his understanding, he checked to see what leaves remained alive on the twigs and branches of those trees; And of course! Most of the leaves remaining alive on the forest trees, where the green leaves! But, even though a few green leaves had been torn off and laid dead on the ground, there where still a few curly old brown leaves, still clinging on, Even though the young green leaves where torn off and laid dead. You understand what we mean, even though young children die, there are still some of these old people who keep coming to our center every Friday for years and years and years still clinging on (Laughs). You know the old Grandma and Grandpa, why aren't they dead yet? (Laughs) They're all still clinging on when these young people die. And he realised that there was nothing wrong. That's what they where saying there: "there's something wrong, It can't be right, why are old people still alive and young people die? It can't be right". Then he saw it was right: It was the nature of life and death it's the nature of a storm which goes through a forest, to mostly take the old leaves, but it always leaves a few old leaves. And it always takes a few young green leaves as well. Nothing is wrong, welcome to life.

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• The man who cried for the moon

  In brief: A father weeps every evening at his son's cremation ground; his family hires an actor who weeps louder, 'for the moon'. When the father…

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  it's a man who cried for the moon. A man who lost his only son, and would go to the cremation ground every evening to cry and cry and cry, and his family let him cry for a while. But when he was crying overmuch they wanted to find some way of overcoming his grief which was going on far too long, ruining his health and his business as I've seen happen. They hired an actor and the actor went to the cremation ground also, and the actor was crying more than the father who'd lost his son. When they met together, these two men crying their eyes out, the actor crying more, the actor asked, "what are you crying for?" He said, "I've lost my son. He's dead..". "What are you crying for," said the father to the actor. "I'm crying for the moon". "What do you mean, crying for the moon?" "It's my birthday last week, and my father asked me - what do you want? And I said I want the moon please. And my father wouldn't get it for me, and I'm so upset.. I'm crying for the moon." And the father said, "You're stupid. You're crazy! Why are you crying for? No-one can give you the moon!" "You call me crazy," said the actor, "You're crying for your dead son. At least you can see the moon! Where is your dead son?" [laughter]. And at that, this is a story, an old story, in the Buddhist texts, at that, the man realised what he was doing, he was crying for something you can never get. Grieving for something which you can't change. And that was enough for him to stop his grief, go back to work, and move on with his life.

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• “Oh, you poor thing”

  In brief: When Ajahn Brahm's father died, his mother was at peace — until a cousin came in with open arms saying “oh you poor thing,” and the…

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  I remember even when my own father died that obviously I knew my mother so well but when my father died she knew he was going to die, you know he came very close many times, when he actually did die she was at ease, at peace with it. It was only when a cousin came in to the house and opened up her arms to my mother and said, "oh you poor thing", and of course that meant the floodgates of my mother's tears started coming. And I knew that if that cousin hadn't said that stupid thing my mother would be much more at peace with the death of her husband and my father. It was as if that there was a social trigger there, that you've lost your husband that you must cry, and that was pressed by this cousin when, before that happened she did not need to go on that path of grief.

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• “Please don't die during our retreat”

  In brief: At the start of the rains retreat Ajahn Brahm jokingly asks everyone not to die until October or November, since funerals break his…

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  I made an announcement last week please don't die during our retreat because if you do I have to come out of the retreat and do your funeral service for you and that breaks my meditation so just out of respect and out of kindness can you please delay your death and to the least know October or or even better November so of course there's a there's always karmic consequences when I say city jokes like that because on Monday I got an email one of my disciples died then he left it for one day and so all my plans of what I was supposed to do on Tuesday and Wednesday were thrown into turmoil as I had to go to Singapore for their funeral so on Tuesday morning at one o'clock in the morning I had to take the flight and I came back on Wednesday afternoon just you know 20 less than 24 hours in Singapore to help with the funeral service

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