Being Mindful Stories

Analogy · Ajahn Brahm

Trees give shade to the one cutting them down

As told by Ajahn Brahm in How to Keep Giving Without Reward | Ajahn Brahm | 02-05-2014

1 min read

The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

Trees are just so kind they even give shade to the person cutting them down.' And that is just a beautiful thing: they're hurting, they're killing the tree, but they still give shade to the people who are destroying them. That's kindness; that's something which is beautiful; that is something which is totally illogical, 100% emotional and just so, so Buddhist: even though someone is cutting you down and killing you, you still give shade to them and protect them. That is the meaning of life

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 49:21 (to 50:00)

A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A sign in a Sri Lankan forest says trees are so kind they shade even the person cutting them down. Ajahn Brahm calls that totally illogical and completely Buddhist. Kindness that shelters those who hurt us is the highest kind. If you give, give fully, with your whole heart.

In brief (our summary)

A forest sign in Sri Lanka: trees are so kind they even give shade to the person cutting them down — kindness that protects even those who harm you.

Teaching point

The highest kindness still shelters the one who hurts you.

When this story may help

  • being hurt while still caring
  • ideal of compassion

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in How to Keep Giving Without Reward | Ajahn Brahm | 02-05-2014 · 2014-05-04 · ▶ watch from 49:21 to 50:00 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is.

The narrative is Ajahn Brahm's own telling, quoted from the talk captions. The summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk. Markdown version

  • The wild horse that kissed the coffin

    In brief: Gerald in Hong Kong sent a photo-story: a man tamed a wild horse with only kindness and patience — no hitting or starving — until the…

    Read full story

    there was a horse which no one could actually tame a wild horse and he decided to give it a try but not training it by hitting it or starving it or punishing it in any which way but just being patient and being kind and of course it took him a long time but after a while this horse you know would allow him to ride on on the horse's back became like an ordinary horse people thought it could never be they used the word broken that's a terrible word to use to break a horse he just used kindness and patience and this horse you know would always you know be this guy's friend would would greet him you know when he would come home from some other business he would greet him by actually putting his mouth on the on the mouth of this owner was actually kissing him but then unfortunately after so many years the owner died and passed away and this guy in hong kong gerald sent this beautiful photograph with the story of when this guy was in the coffin dead the horse came up and kissed his friend kissed the coffin obviously even that horse recognized that this that was his friend i just gave it one last kiss and this is those sorts of stories

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • Plant more flowers

    In brief: Simile for 'repressed' emotions: your garden has weeds and flowers. Weeding isn't repression. But better than pulling the weeds, plant…

    Read full story

    You have a garden at home. You have weeds and you have flowers. Should you actually just maybe cultivate the flowers to acknowledge them, to emit them, to not suppress them, not repress them, not to repress the the weeds in your garden. That's a stupid thing to do. If you got gardens, there's weeds in there. Just make sure they don't sort of grow any further. That's not called repression. That's called, I suppose, weeding, cultivating a garden. But one of the best ways instead of like pulling the weeds out, plant more flowers and water the flowers. Water the bushes and then the flowers grow and soon the flowers and the bushes grow so great that they choke the the weeds off.

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • Super Monk and the DreamWorks email

    In brief: As a new monk in Thailand Ajahn Brahm reads a comic of 'Super Monk' who flies and saves people — but instead of killing villains, gives…

    Read full story

    someone showed me a copy of one of the tiny newspapers and even though I couldn't understand Thai that well I still as I do these days I like reading the comics so I saw a comic there and the comic was of a character called super monk nice 36 37 years ago so super monk was like a Superman or one of these superheroes and Superman could levitate of course being a super monk could fly through the air but also had these great powers to stop trains crashing and stop aircrafts or plunging into the ground he could save all these people from the bad guys but unlike modern times when Superman or these other superheroes they usually either killed the bad guy send him into prison forever in Superman comic he were given the five Buddhist precepts and they'd become very good people afterwards even they rejoin the Sangha become monks there's a much nicer ending and not violence because sometimes even these these superheroes they used too much violence instead of using violence using wisdom and compassion to solve the problems of the world and what a wonderful idea that was and so anyway I mentioned that I see the newspapers you know in the magazines they got all these superheroes I used to read about in the comics as a kid Batman and Green Lantern and the flash and all these other people they always Batman there was made movies of these people now and so the one movie which I thought they should have after the Buddhist Film Fest what a real Buddhist movie would be super Munk now you know I throw these ideas out and sometimes you think I'm just no hour wasting time but when you go to these meetings every now and again you meet someone interesting and at the end of my talk somebody stood up and they put their hand off the question said my ex our husband works for Steven Spielberg it DreamWorks I'm gonna email him tonight this suggestion so if you see in a one or two years time in the movies super Munk done by DreamWorks with the consultant as Adam Braun you know where the cave I thought what a wonderful thing because all these superheroes they end up punishing the bad guys

    Open story page·Watch this telling

  • He punched the art teacher for smiling — then called him a friend

    In brief: An Armadale-group artist who taught at Claremont smiled at a difficult colleague; the man punched him and flattened him. Years later the…

    Read full story

    one of these artists who used to come to our Armadale group so many years ago, he was an art teacher at Claremont, I think it was. And he said one of his colleagues was just a bad person, and this art teacher was quite a spiritual guy, he smiled at this colleague one day and the colleague just punched him in the nose and flattened him for smiling. And he met the guy years later— he had to leave the school after that— and met him years later and this friend came up and said, "We were such good friends in those days," and the teacher said, "What? You flattened me!" He said, "Oh, yeah, I forgot about that." His perception of the relationship was totally different than the other person's relationship; the guy who hit the art teacher was going through some very, very difficult time, but recognized the art teacher was actually trying to be kind to him. And even though he couldn't express that he'd recognize this, and even just it looked like he was angry at this art teacher, it is still the kindness had got in there somewhere, and it stayed with him for all those years

    Open story page·Watch this telling

All stories·Find a story for your situation