The channelled spirit at the roulette table

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• The nun who hit the jackpot

  In brief: Driving a famous Buddhist nun to Heathrow after a retreat, her driver puts spare coins in a pub fruit machine and, saying the nun has…

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  there was a famous Buddhist nun uh who uh was teaching a Meditation Retreat in England and after she finished teaching the retreat she went down to um to hro airport and on the way they stopped for something to eat it was was a lunchtime so they stopped in one of these restaurants which was next to a pub if ever you been to London or not to London sorry to England a lot of the places where you can get something to eat on a journey they got a pub next door so you have to go in the front of the pub to get into the restaurant so they they went through the front of the pub to get into the restaurant and had their meal I know the person who told me this story because she's from Sydney and she validated this was a real story it happened when they the driver came out of the pub she had a few English coins spare so she decided to put them in one of these slot machines the Poke machines just to get rid of the coins because you know the few little coins you can't change at the uh the currency exchange it's too small you know you change about6 and you have to pay10 commissions so you end up sort of losing on the deal but anyhow she put a few coins in the slot and she had one in the slot when the Buddhist nun came out from her meal and she said to the Buddhist nun you have got much better Karma than I have you pull the handle and in one moment of lack of mindfulness just on the spur of the moment sometimes you're thinking of something else people ask you out of compassion you just do it and that's what she did the Buddhist nun pulled the handle and the wheels went round and round and round and then first one stopped jackpot second one stopped jackpot third one stopped jackpot ding ding ding ding ding ding ding and all this money started pouring out of the machine and we monks and nuns were not even allowed to touch the stuff and she couldn't afford it was falling all over her she'd won the jackpot now you may think that's now lucky but it's not lucky cuz what happened next was all the patrons in the bar went silent this Buddhist nun in a strange Rob had won the jackpot and the next thing which happened was a b man took a little bell and rang it and announced to the nun that it was the tradition it was the rule which could not be broken that whoever won the jackpot had to buy a free round of drinks for everybody in the bar and it was the first time in 2,500 years that the buddist none had to buy a whiskey a beer gin and tonics for all the people in that's what happens

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• Five Angels in the fifth race

  In brief: A Perth man dreams that five angels each give him five pots of gold. At breakfast his wife has made five pieces of toast and five boiled…

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  the fifth of May reminded me of one of those amazing stories about this gentleman here in Perth quite many years ago now. And this is the last question here. So I don't mind just going off with a Oh no, there's another one afterwards. Anyway, I've already started the story. that he had a dream in the middle of the night. Actually, not the middle of the night, it was early in the morning here in Perth. And his dream is he dreamt of these five angels, these five like davas angels. And they each had five big pots of gold. And they queued up and they gave him 25 pots of gold. That was his dream. And then as soon as he received his last pot of gold, he woke up. He looked around the bedroom. It was morning time. He couldn't see any angels in his bedroom. But worse, he didn't mind not seeing angels, but he really missed the pots of gold. And so, just a dream. When he went down to breakfast, he found that morning his wife had made him five pieces of toast and five boiled eggs, which was weird. What's with the number five? He looked at the newspaper. 5th of May and just you know wondering what was going on he decided to look at the horse racing pages here in Perth there is a horse racing course it's named after a big one in in England called Ascot A S C O T five letters. So he looked at the fifth race that afternoon and he looked down the fifth horse in the fifth race. He just couldn't believe his his eyes. The horse was called Five Angels. The horse five angels was running on the 5th of May in Ascot and he just dreamt of five angels giving him this huge fortune in gold. If you do have these experiences, you only have them once in your life. So he decided to to take the afternoon off work. He went to the bank to keep the lucky number five. $5,000 out of the bank. A lot of money. $5,000. He went to the racetrack. He chose the fifth book maker in line. He said $5,000 to win horse number five. Race number five, five angels. He knew the lucky number five couldn't go wrong. And the lucky number five didn't go wrong. His horse came in fifth.

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• The Singapore spirits helped the Ang Mo

  In brief: An English ex-army dental technician with a Singaporean wife visits the in-laws, gets bored, and is taken to the races. They clean a messy…

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  he was an English man he was in the British army he was just not fighter he was like a dental technician or something so you know pretty sort of easy job but he was posted off to Singapore when the British was still in Singapore and there met this nice girl and married her so he had a Singapore wife and they they moved down to Liv in Perth where they've been living for many years and he told me that once when he was visiting Singapore know with his wife's family and his wife was chatting nagnag nagnag and he got really bored you know talking about all this stuff you know what it's like know meeting you know your other partners uh your partner's family so well they were all sort of U walking and shouting and eating he was getting very bored and his brothers-in-law saw that and said look we're going to the racetrack this afternoon we'd like to come along and he never likes gambling or going to the RAC trck but there was much better than facing his wife's family so he said okay I'll go so they took him to the racetrack but this is Singapore no Chinese no Chinese Buddhists before you go to the RAC track you have to visit the lucky Temple so they went to a lucky Temple you know in the back streets of Singapore somewhere and as soon as I walked in it was a mess you know it was just ash everywhere papers and stuff so and this is an important part of this um process if you're going to be lucky you got to do some good karma first of all please remember that so if ever you go to the racetrack or the casino come to D Loa Center and do some sweeping or some weeding first of all otherwise you got no chance so he he went to the temple and they saw it a mess so they spent about half an hour or an hour cleaning the place up and once they clean the place up then you know know what those we call them jtic Buddhists you know in our tradition getting a few justics and no one actually knows why they do this they just do that cuz their grandmother did it and I don't know what it is it doesn't make any difference how much you shake these things but anyway they did the shake of the joysticks and they put it in the um in the uh the whatever it is the jostick holder and then they went over cuz we don't do this sort of stuff in the forest tradition is very simple and very rational we don't have all this Superstition stuff but nevertheless I know that um you know I don't know why this is where this came from and all these Lottery outlets in Perth you have these big fat Buddhas and you're supposed to rub tummy for luck don't what you do that for and sometimes I'm getting a bit fat now and sometimes people come up and they want to rub my belly no way anyway actually I did open a lot ofy store I'm just really going off the C because sometimes as a monk people friends say you know they're opening up a new business or going into a new house and sometimes it's part of the tradition you know come and invite a monk to actually um to bless a place so some time ago they said my friend that they're opening up a new shop in some shopping center better not tell you which one it is and so said okay yeah they never told me it was a lottery shop and we not supposed to get involved in these sorts of things as much you know we're supposed to tell people not to gamble and it's the Buddha actually said gambling is like um is an addiction it's the wrong thing to do but nevertheless I got caught that way and I was there just I should have asked what shop I was going to uh be blessing when one day people ask me to bless a pub or sometimes even worse if I don't ask but anyway I went into the place it was too late now so I did a bit a blessing but actually they a few weeks later they got a jackpot there so these blessings are really good but anyhow where was I oh was back in this Singapore Singapore so they cleaned up the temple and they did lots of good car and they went to the racetrack it's amazing you know the result they all lost but never this I had a bit of fun but that night that night this English man no a Singapore girl he had a dream and again one of these very clear dreams which you remember and so he woke up and the dream guess what it was he dreamt of a of a horse race you know seeing it his dream and he dreamt the horse which won the name of that horse this is true story he remembered that name when he woke up and just for interest look in the morning paper the straight times in the horse racing it was running that day exactly that name so the first thing he did you know being fair he rang up all his brothers-in-law and said hey that Temple which we blessed or we cleaned up the other day there must be some sort of heavenly being or some Spirit guarding the place cuz they told me the name of the the horse which is going to win today and it's in look this is the name it's in the Strait's times they're racing today let's all go to the race track we get our money back which we lost yesterday and make a bit more sounds reasonable but his brothers-in-law said listen so you're what we call an Ang Mo people are laughing here no that means like red that means like a Westerner like a foreigner in Singapore he said that was a Singapore Temple any Spirit there they would not tell one of you guys certainly not an English guy they would tell us we don't had any dreams so you just you you you're just imagining it they said so because they thought that a Singaporean like a Chinese Spirit would never never tell an English person they never went to the track he went alone and that horse won and he put a lot of money on it cuz he was convinced he Dre it and that horse ran and he made a lot of money what he lost yesterday was insignificant to what he what he won and the worst thing was that when he went home and he told his brothers hey that horse I told you about it won that day made a lot of money oh his brothers-in-law they were ropable they were so upset and angry

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• Why some are born intelligent

  In brief: From a sutta: a man asks the Buddha what karma makes people wealthy, then what makes them beautiful or ugly (Ajahn Brahm breaks off to…

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  And there they tell the story of this man who came up to the Buddha and asked him like a question on karma. He was saying, you know, I've noticed in this world, some people are just born wealthy, and they managed to maintain that wealth and increase it. Now other people are born poor, and sometimes they get wealthy, but you know, there are some people, they're poor, they work really hard, and they try very hard and they work just all hours of the night and still, it's just so hard to make ends meet. Why can't you be wealthy? While other people they seem to work much less than you, they just got the gift of making money. It must be some karma from a past life that we're born poor in this life. So he asked, What do I have to do in this life? What karma do I have to make in this life to be rich in my next life?" That's a fair enough question. so the Buddha gave him an answer. He was so happy with it. He asked the second question, he said, I've also noticed that sometimes people are very beautiful, while other people are ugly. And you may notice when I mentioned the word "ugly", I stared at the carpet. And the reason for this, the reason for this is I told this story in Singapore once. And I just, I just happened to be looking at a certain woman when I mentioned the word "ugly". Oh, my goodness, did she complain. She said, "Why did you mention the word ugly when you're looking at me?" It's even worse, if I've mentioned the word "beautiful" when I'm looking at someone, they get the wrong idea. (laughter) So anyway, he, the Buddha explained the cause for beauty and ugliness in your next life. But then the killer question, why are some people intelligent, and other people they just have such a hard time at school and university. You've been with some people, they hardly do any of the homework, they just float through school, they get the prizes, and they go to universities, they get double first. You know, for the rest of us. It's just so hard just now just getting the TEE passed. He said, "Why is it? What's the karmic reason why people are born intelligent, and other people aren't intelligent? What's the karmic cause?" And the Buddha said, and this was a beautiful answer. "The karmic reason for stupidity in your next life is not asking questions in this life."

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