The man paid to irritate everyone

Related stories

• Ajahn Mosquito

  In brief: As a young monk, Ajahn Brahm finds the mosquitoes intolerable and asks for repellent, coils and screens — surely the monastery can afford…

  Read full story▾▴

  the mosquitoes will irritate you so much And it was worse for the Western monks We used to get bitten maybe 10 or 20 times as much as the Thai monks did I didn't understand First I thought what it was Now Look; if you were in Thailand you are lucky because you got hair on your head Actually what we are supposed to in Thailand, it's so hot we have the bare shoulder So literally we had more seats at the dinner table for the mosquitoes They can get on you because you had more exposed skin And number two: it was the very first time in Thailand that there were westerners in that area. I went to many villages and I was the first westerner, the first white man they have seen in the village. Let alone a monk. So that was the same with the mosquitoes That was the first time they had western food in that area of Thailand You know what it is alike a new Chinese Restaurant a new Lebanese Restaurant people love to taste it First of all it's like a specialty, a rarity, a novelty So all those mosquitoes were going around and telling their mates Hey there's western food in this monastery 'come on taste it, it's a novelty' So we got bitten to death. And we complained to Ajahn Chah Look can't we get some repellent, can't we get some mosquito coils Can't we get some mosquito nets? Help us! Look, we are getting bitten to death And Ajahn Chah told us 'from now on you call those mosquitoes--Ajahn Mosquitoes They are now going to be your teachers not me

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• The mosquitoes were my teachers

  In brief: As a young monk in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm could not include mosquitoes in his loving-kindness chant; when he finally let one bite him out…

  Read full story▾▴

  Being in Northeast Thailand, we'd always call the mosquitoes "Ajahn mosquito"... [laughter] ...because I learned so much from those damn mosquitoes. [laughs] That's what I thought at the time, those mosquitoes. Because even when we just do loving kindness. For those of you who are Buddhists, you know that we spread love and kindness to all people, all beings, all genders, no matter what you are or who you are. May all beings be happy and well. However, as a young man being a monk in Thailand, I just could not do that. It's impossible. I did the best I can. I used to chant, "May all beings be happy and well, except mosquitoes." [laughter] Ajahn: "May all beings be free from suffering, but not those mosquitoes. They don't deserve, what they've done to me." [laughs] I'm sure that if ever you spread loving kindness, you've also got exceptions. [laughs] But it didn't work well when I had exceptions, so I learned how to learn from those mosquitoes to be kind to them. Sometimes, I was so kind to those mosquitoes I let them bite me. They would land on my hand. I said, "Come on, mosquito, you can bite me. The door of my heart is open to you. It's only a little bit of blood. I know that you need this to have your dinner. And I like my dinner as well, especially as a monk. I know this is your dinner, so have something to eat. Do you know what those mosquitoes did? Sometimes difficult people and difficult beings are like this. They take advantage of you. They put their nose into the skin, and it's irritating. So you just endure that. It's only a few seconds. But these mosquitoes, that was just an exploratory drill. They took their nose out, walked a few steps, and tried somewhere else. [laughter] Ajahn: They were fussy. You have three or four bites just from one mosquito! They were taking advantage of my kindness. [chuckles] That's just the nature of mosquitoes. It doesn't matter. I have plenty of blood, and I learned a lot from that.

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• Training dolphins, training husbands

  In brief: From a psychology magazine: a PhD student studying how marine parks train dolphins — throw a fish whenever it jumps an inch higher, never…

  Read full story▾▴

  the story of that woman I read in the psychology magazine who was doing a PhD and psychology and her subject was how they train dolphins in these Marine Parks you know to play water poloo to jump through these hoops and she found out that the way they do this is if that dolphin jumps an inch higher you throw the dolphin a fish positive reinforcement if it doesn't jump you don't hit it you don't get angry at the Dolphin you just wait until it jumps 2 in and then it gets another fish so every time it gets incrementally closer to what you want that dolphin to do that's when you throw another fish to the dolphin incremental positive reinforcement now this woman I I really kicked myself for not keeping that article because that this was one wise woman she went to her supervisor at University and got permission to change her thesis because she realized she had this wonderful Insight the very same technique which they used to teach Dolphins at these Marine Parks could be used on her husband so she got permission from her supervisor to change the thesis instead of how to train dolphins how to train husbands it's a brilliant piece of advice and it's practical too how do you do this it's Works them as how you train train wives or how do you train girlfriends or Partners or people in your office whenever they do something wrong they irritate you ignore it don't do anything but when they do something you like which is not irritating that's when you throw them a fish metaphorically that is in other words you give them some sort of positive feedback and of course that actually works and in her article the one part I remember she said one of the most irritating parts of you know her of her relationship with her husband and many of you may be able to relate to this in the morning when they were both getting ready to go to work he could never find his tie and he know wife was know trying to get ready to go to work too and she has to dress up much more than a guy does and she you know darling have you seen my tie can you help me find my tie it's only a small thing like that but you know that every morning that really irritates you you're trying to get ready and here's this stupid guy and he can't even remember where he put his own clothes and she would always get very angry and irritated at him for this and so she tried the throwing the fish method so when he couldn't find his tie where's my tie D could you help me find my tie he would ignore it she would ignore it she wouldn't get irritated she wouldn't complain she would just totally ignore it and go around her task and of course eventually he'd find his tie himself and that's when she would stop what she was doing and give him a big hug and kiss oh well done darling that was throwing the fish and you may laugh but this was very very effective in a couple of months she said he never asked me now he just finds his own stuff and now I'm free in the morning to do what I like to do instead of of helping this guy

  Open story page·Watch this telling

• The 18-hour flight delay

  In brief: Ajahn Brahm's flight to Indonesia is delayed 18 hours; he thanks the desk and goes back to the monastery, while the passengers behind him…

  Read full story▾▴

  And just was it in January, when I was going off to Indonesia to give a series of talks I got to Perth airport and found that the Garuda flight was cancelled. It was actually delayed by about 18 hours. And I was a monk so I just went up to the counter and said, "Oh is it delayed? When is it going to leave? 18 hours. Okay, thank you very much," and I sort-of called the monastery and got a lift back to the monastery. But the people behind me they were thumping the counter - "You can't do this to us! I've got all of these arrangements and plans!" I had arrangements and plans as well - thousands of people were waiting to listen to my talks. But I couldn't do anything about it. And you know all that anger and all that thumping and all that shouting.. it didn't make the plane leave earlier. It didn't do anything good at all except making people upset. Themselves upset, and other people upset.

  Open story page·Watch this telling