Missed lunch for the woman at the airport

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• Alms offering on Pat Pong Road

  In brief: Western monks visiting Bangkok are taken to Pat Pong, the red-light district, where sex workers clean their premises, dress appropriately,…

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  they'd just been a few weeks before to Pat Pong Road. The monks, for those of you who don't know Bangkok, Pat Pong Road was the red light district of Bangkok. Every year, well, this in those days, you know, these were prostitutes. They would clean up their um premises, dress appropriately because we monks are very sensitive and invite the monks to do an arms offering. You know, they wanted to make good karma as well. You know, feed the monks, you know, take the precepts for the day and then just, you know, make some uh charitable donations to the temple

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• Ajahn Maha Bua said carry on eating

  In brief: Visiting one of Thailand's strictest monks (captioned Ajahn Mahaboor — Maha Bua), where no one may eat after the teacher stops, skinny…

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  that was this month called ajahn mahaboor he was really strict and he had this ruled in the monastery that only have one meal a day and uh you couldn't start eating before he started eating and when he finished everybody else had to finish that's why all those monks only one meal a day they always ate very fast because sometimes when my boy stopped eating then everybody had to remember on this occasion i just gone there for the first time and i was at the end of the line there i was eating my lunch they told me to be fast and when i he finished everyone had to finish me too i put down my spoon and he looked at me and he said carry on eating honestly i was really thin in those days no skin on bones because the food which i had in ajahn charles monastery was very very lack of nutrition very simple food and so i was skin and bones he saw that and he said carry on eating and that touched my heart wasn't i needed to eat more it was this is kindness so i carried on eating and that was the sort of thing which how you don't break a monk you're kind to them

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• Ajahn Jagaro keeps eating

  In brief: A distraught Thai woman bursts into the monks' meal crying that her friend has shot herself; Ajahn Jagaro calmly keeps eating for a minute…

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  One of the first times I saw this and it was very impressive was the former abbot and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia Ajahn Jagaro. I was with him when he was a monk just learning his trade in Thailand. Because we do learn a trade - this is a training which we go through. And we were having our morning meal when a Thai lady ran into our dining hall. She ran in, and she's obviously very upset, because they don't usually do this - interfering in a monk's meal. And she was saying something in Thai, and I actually caught it after a while, she said "Suchin is dead! Suchin is dead! She shot herself! She's committed suicide!". And I got really quite excited too because I knew that lady, she had cancer, we've been going to see her, talking to her, counselling her. She was a close disciple of the monastery. And that morning she had shot herself, and this was her best friend who found her body. She came in to the monastery just straight away, completely distraught having found her best friend committed suicide. You can understand what she felt like. And I understood that, and I looked to Ajahn Jagaro who was the head monk at that time to see what he would do. He understood what she'd said and he put his head down and carried on eating. And this lady - "She shot herself! She killed herself!" - and the monk just carried on eating as if nothing had happened. And after about one or two minutes she stopped moving her arms up and down, she stopped shouting, and at that point Ajahn Jagaro put down his spoon, put aside his bowl, and said "what happened?" I thought it was a beautiful piece of psychological calming a person's emotions down. Because he was not responding with anxiety to her great distress, he was just calming her down just by his actions and by his softness, she too calmed down in the space of one or two minutes. It was the most brilliant counselling I'd seen for years.

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• The razor wheel in hell (Borobudur)

  In brief: Shown a Borobudur carving, Ajahn Brahm tells of a man who pushed over his mother and, out of guilt, is reborn in hell, where a razor wheel…

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  it was an old Buddhist story of a guy who had actually pretty good guy but he did one bad act he pushed over his mother and she injured herself and of course he felt so guilty about that that when he died he got born in this hell realm and he he went down to meet this guy you in this terrible realm and he saw this fellow you know having his head cut with a razor wheel you know just cutting into his head continuously you know obviously without him dying and he's in great pain but this guy said at last you've come because when I got this wheel it was 600 years ago cuz I hurt my mother and I was told that in 600 years time another guy will come cuz he also hurt his mom and when he comes the wheel will leave my head and I'll be free of this torture and it will go into this other guy's head and here you are here's a wheel so the wheel left this other guy and the guy sort of know vanished from this torture and he went into this new guy's head and he was cutting his head in an incredible Agony but this fellow this new guy he had thoughts of kindness of compassion and he said I'm going to take this wheel not for 600 years but for 3,000 years so the next four or five guys don't have to bear this I'll take their punishment for them and that kind thought the wheel shattered and he was taken away from this hell realm and reborn in the heaven realm Just one thought of kindness and compassion did that

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