Peter already knew — Mom had just visited

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• The villages without grief

  In brief: Living nine years at a Thai cremation-ground monastery, Ajahn Brahm saw villagers bring their dead without grieving, which contradicted…

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  the monastery I was staying most of the time was a cremation ground. So all the villagers in the local area used that place for the funerals. So we'd do the funeral, we'd see all the villagers, they'd come, bring their dead, we'd do all the chanting and the services, we'd see them that afternoon, that evening, the next day. And there was something very strange, there was no grief, they just didn't cry, not just cry, they weren't even sad when somebody died. This was not suppressing their grief because you saw them every day, they just, wasn't there, it was a culture in which grief was absent and that really shocked me, and I was there nine years so this was no just, short visit, and I thought that was impossible because my learning had said that when you lose someone you love you have to have grief. The truth of the matter, there was no grief there.

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• The polka-dot bow tie

  In brief: A Kalgoorlie builder dying of cancer comes to the monastery for counselling about death, dressed as always in thongs, shorts and a…

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  one of the gentlemen um here he had a friend in Calgi who was a builder. The builder got cancer and the friend invited the builder to come to Bodin Island Monastery for some counseling about dying. And of course eventually the builder died. Even when he visited me, he visited me the best clothes he possibly could have which was always like thongs and shorts and a singlet. That's all the clothes he would wear. And then uh when he died it was a closed coffin. Of course I never went there. It was done in Kgori, but my friend who lived over here did and then a few days later friend was woken up in the middle of the night. Somebody had poked him. He thought of his thought it was his wife and he told his wife off and realized his wife was fast asleep. It wasn't her and he saw it was his friend who died. But what really surprised him, this builder was wearing a polka dot bow tie and a nice suit. He said, "This is weird." Cuz I'd never seen in my life him wear this s sort of clothing. And then he woke his wife up to say this is uh this guy has come to see us. And of course after he know lost that one or two moments of contact then she couldn't find him anymore. When he come and told me that story, I said, "Uh, did you see him in his coffin?" He said, "No, it was a closed coffin." And I said, "As soon as you can, please call his wife in Calguri." You know, he was living in Perth and ask, you know, um, what was No, just ask ordinary questions and then just ask in passing what was he wearing in his coffin? And that's when his wife admitted said, "Oh, you know, I bought him this suit years ago. He never wore it cuz he just like ordinary Australian garb." And so I dressed him in a nice shirt, a polka dot bow tie, and this um uh this suit cuz he would never wear it usually. Niku was dead. He couldn't complain. And that's exactly how he saw him in the in this vision.

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• The shire ranger's mother at the foot of the bed

  In brief: English shire ranger living alone in northern WA wakes mid-night; turns on the light; his sick mother stands clear at the foot of the bed…

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  Northern Iowa many years ago there was one of the members of our Buddhist society lived there by himself and he was a he was English and he was a ranger ear first it was sterling Shire yeah and what was it Vincent anyway one of the science Shire Ranger very down-to-earth man and he told me that one morning writing up one morning middle of the nights in his house living there by himself he woke up middle of the night knowing that something was strange he turned on his lights next to his bed and saw his mother standing at the end of his bed clear as if it was her his mother had got on a plane and came to visit him but he knew it couldn't be his physical mother his mother was sick in hospital and it was clear as ever could be she was standing at the end of his bed I don't know why the end of his bed but that's where she was standing looking at him with only the smart of love which her mother can give to her children beautiful smile

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• The whole household had the same dream

  In brief: The daughter of the monastery treasurer, in her twenties, dies of cancer. Some time later he arrives at dawn: at breakfast one daughter…

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  because this lady died in Thailand. She and her father was a treasurer of our monastery. So, uh we knew she was dying, you know, cancer. She's a very young lady in her 20ies. Tried everything to look after her, but she eventually died. So, I knew the day she died, you know, we did the funeral ceremony for her. And it was, you know, sometime later, her father came really early in the morning and he actually came to speak with me and said, "Why are you coming to the monastery so early?" And he said, "Look, I had to come. I came on the first possible vehicle because something weird happened this morning." And he said that we were having our breakfast like in Asia, sitting on the floor with all the the dishes in front of you. And there was about 12 or 13 people or 14 people in the house. And he said, "My one of my other daughters, you know, just chatting around mentioned, I said, I had a really strange dream last night. I dream my sister came to me in my dream and said that she'd spent enough time here now she was taking leave and going and at that everybody stopped eating and one by one every person in that house said they had the very same dream same dream no difference and so you know the father the head of the house came to see me and said what happened obviously she's taken leave it's time for her to go and because I knew the whole family so well and the whole circumstance dances. Straight away I looked at the calendar and it was exactly 49 days.

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