One buffalo, or wanting two

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• The hundred-baht wish list

  In brief: A grateful Thai supporter who knows the rules offers the young monk a 'mendicant allowance' of 100 baht for anything he personally wants.…

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  Cos that happened to me many years ago, maybe over thirty years ago in Thailand, I had helped a man with some problems, and he was very grateful, he knew the rules, cos he was a Thai, been around the forest tradition a long time, so he came up to me and asked me, "Is there anything I can get for you? Just for you, not for the temple, one hundred baht." That's thirty-seven years ago, and these days, it's only worth about two or three dollars, but that to me was a lot of money. So you know, my mind went blank, as it often does, maybe I meditate too much, I don't know. But anyway, I couldn't think. And he was getting very impatient, and he had his work to go to. I came up with an idea, I said to him, "Why don't you come tomorrow morning? Tonight I'll think about what I want, and I'll write it down and give it to you tomorrow." He said, "Good idea - I'll be here about the same time tomorrow." So that night, after the evening meeting, chanting and meditation, I went back to my room, I lit a candle, cos there's no electricity - and I got out a old piece of paper and a pen, so I started thinking, "what do I want?" Straight away the pencil broke, so I said, actually - I need, not pencils, pencils are hopeless, I need like a pen. just a simple, biro pen or something. And as for the piece of paper, it's just a scrap piece of paper, I need a little exercise book - you know, nothing fancy, just a little exercise book, and also you know the candle is very, very difficult to write, it's bad for your eyes, just you know, reading or writing by candle light. What I wanted is one of these little oil lamps, little lamps you know, you see maybe on the boats, over here in Australia, just a little oil lamp, and a bit of kerosene, and talking about lights, my flash light was really terrible, and I needed a new flash light, and some batteries - and I put all of those things down. I suddenly realised one hundred baht, was not enough. And you know, it was so difficult to actually take any of those things off the list now, Cos now I thought about it, I don't know how I survived without them. I mean how can you survive, you know, and actually I needed some new sandals, you know, if I'm going to be walking through those forests, I needed some more new sandals, and actually talking about pieces of paper, I really needed to write to my family, I needed these aerograms. And soon, a thousand bahts was not enough. And every one of those items I put on the list, now was so important to me, I just could not scratch any one off. And that's when I had the insight, I realised what's this thing was doing to me. At that point, I screwed up that piece of paper, and I threw it in the waste bin, this little spittoon we had. And the following day, when that man came, I scolded him, "Don't you ever do that to me ever again. I was such a happy monk, before you gave me one hundred dollars. Or a hundred baht, now I had all these desires."

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• The Mexican fisherman

  In brief: An American business professor on holiday meets a Mexican fisherman unloading his morning catch: enough to feed his family, then lunch, a…

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  it's a story of the old Mexican fisherman you know there was American who went on vacation to the Caribbean coast and when he was uh just walking around by the shore he saw a fishing boat come in to unload its morning catch and his Mexican fisherman unloaded the catch and this American came up to have a conversation with him said what are you doing seor he told the American I've been out fishing all morning I've got enough fish here to sell to feed my family so now I'm going to go home and have a nice lunch after lunch I'm going to have a sleep a cesta it's good for your health you don't get stressed out if you have a siesta can you have a siesta or you're too busy I'm going to have a cester and after cester I'll be home when my kids come back from school they play with them help them with their homework and in the evening I'm going to have dinner with my wife and maybe you know go to the the canteen or the pub in Mexico having a a couple of tequilas not much and play the guitar with my friends now life is good and that's when the American said sir I am a professor of business studies in a business school in the United States I think I can help you don't be so lazy you are not exploiting this wonderful resource of a fishing boat yeah go home and have lunch but go out in the afternoon you'll catch twice as much fish with the extra profit from twice as much fish you'll be able to buy a much bigger boat with a crew that way you'll soon be able to catch about four or six times as many fish with that extra profit you'll be able to buy a second boat in about four or five years you'll probably have a whole Fleet of boats and then with a whole Fleet of boats you can even make your own caner so you can process the fish it's Downstream processing to make increase your profits and then with that business you can actually uh move the center of your business to Mexico City or even better to LA and then because you own the whole business you can float it on the stock market know sell shares because you're the CEO you can award yourself these amazing obscene salaries and give yourself stock options which means if the stock goes up you can buy if it doesn't you don't need to you can make a millionaire many times over in about 10 years now I'm a professor of business studies that's how it's done and the Mexican fisherman listened very respectfully until the end of this presentation the Mexican fisherman said but Senor what will I do with all those millions of dollars and Professor thought for a few moments he hadn't thought the business plan out that far so he had to think that's all people think about making the few Millions but then what and the professor said well yeah with all that Millions few Millions you know you can retire you know you can retire to you know a nice fishing Village like this buy yourself a small boat just to go out in the morning for fun you'll be able to have lunch with your your wife every day you'll be able to take a siesta afterwards and you always be home to play with your children when they come back from school and you'll be able to go out in the evening with no worries at all Senor I do that already

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• The mango tree with no mangoes

  In brief: A king sees two mango trees — one laden, one bare — and almost curses the bare one. Returning for fruit he finds soldiers have stripped…

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  one of the kings in his Buddhist story he went went this is in the time of the Buddha he went with his soldiers to train and as he was coming back to his Palace after doing the training he saw two mango trees one of those mango trees had so many ripe mangoes on them the other tree had no mangoes at all and he thought what's the point of being a mango tree if you don't have any mangoes so he almost cursed that mango tree with no mangoes and the tree with lots of mangoes he thought that when I finished and got back to the palace and got changed I'll come out and enjoy some of these R mangoes that's what he did so he changed and got on his horse and came out to taste some of those right mangoes and only then he saw that his soldiers who's helping train they never bothered to get changed they stripped that mango tree which had the mangoes of every fruit which was on there and as they were stripping every mango they broke so many branches and stripped off so many leaves that mango tree which was once full of succulent mangoes was actually destroyed he looked at the mango tree which had no mangoes and that's the still had all its branches and leaves intact and he thought I'm going to renounce being a king if you have power and wealth there's other people who want it isn't it more happy to be someone who has enough to live but not too much so other people will never want to break into your house they never want to steal anything that's just like Monastery you know right now where I live the door of my coutti is open I never locked it this after oh it's actually this morning when I left bodana to come here my cave those doors are open too there's nothing in there just space there emptiness who can steal emptiness we can't st

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• The lottery winner led to jail

  In brief: A happy man of modest means wins a US lottery of over a hundred million dollars; soon his picture is in the paper as he is led to jail.…

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  A classic story is few years ago one of the people who won a huge lottery in the United States hundred million dollars or more , his picture was in the newspaper being led to jail He was a very happy man before he won the lottery and as soon as he won the lottery things started to go wrong in his life Sure before he won that lottery he didn't have much money he had enough to enjoy his life, to be able eat and have a modest little house and go out with his friends but as soon as he became really really wealthy all of his friends he could not trust anymore. all were asking for loans or bits of money here and there it was one of the problems with wealth; even though it promises you so much it tends to limit your enjoyment of the world rather than facilitate it

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