The tycoon's mansion that felt like a prison

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• Walking off with everything he owned on his back

  In brief: After five years as a monk in Thailand (around 1979) Ajahn Brahm leaves his monastery to wander on foot. Nothing can be stored, so he must…

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  One of my most memorable experiences in my training as a monk after 5 years being a monk in these monasteries in Thailand you are expected, encouraged to actually leave the monastery, just go wondering on foot. Its a great opportunity to visit other teachers' You have been in a one monastery and to see how the other teachers teach To get a wider experience or may be go and find some solitude in the jungles or the mountains That was after five years--what would that be 1979 or something; somewhere around then. I left the monastery; and the rule was you couldn't store anything there. You can give it away but once you gave it away nothing would be kept for you. So everything which was yours you had to carry with you. And of course if you are walking especially through the hot tropics carrying lots and lots of stuff is just really really unpleasant. It was reminding you how much a burden your possessions were. So after a couple of days, you gave this away and you gave that away and you are down to the absolute minimum you needed Once you got down to that minimum, my goodness it was so light. You can imagine the experience. Just put yourself in that experience that everything you own you are carrying on your back and it's light. And you can dance, there is hardly any burden there at all. Because as a monk we knew that, there are monasteries everywhere any place you go you can get a bed for the night. If you don't get a bed for the night you can sleep under a tree. Its the tropics, it is easy to do. You can go anywhere, you get something to eat, not delicious food but enough to keep you going through the day, there is waters in the well. There was this total sense of freedom freedom from possessions. And that was just like being in heaven. You didn't have any worries at all. You had cloths to wear, you had this little mosquito net umbrella which you could park anywhere to sleep at night. And the best thing about it; you had no appointments. Your future was blank. I could go anywhere I wanted. Every cross road, you can go left, go right, turn around, go forward, stay still No one was asking you to go anywhere, to do anything or be anything. That was one of my wonderful experiences of being free from attachments at all.

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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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• Imprisoned in a six-star hotel

  In brief: On a conference tour in Japan, his hosts put Ajahn Brahm in what he later hears was a six-star hotel room. He's afraid to touch the taps…

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  I remember going this one time and I was giving some talks in Japan and going to I'm not sure if it's possible because I couldn't speak Japanese, but this hotel, it looked like it was a six-star hotel. It was crazy. We was just, you know, going to give a series of talks and conferences and stuff when I got inside of there in this hotel and I don't know if you know the Japanese culture said, "Please, we want you to be in here because we want to know where you are." It was a bit of a conference and so had to make sure I was in the right place. And then just I was inside this and I thought this is like a prison for me. I'm a monk. I'm not used to hotels. They had this big bath and a jacuzzi or something. I never been in one of those before. I own too scared to turn on any tap cuz any button or something. If I turned it on, I don't know what would happen. And of course, being a monk, you can't turn on the TV. That's against our rules. And the beds not like beds we have in in Serpentine where monastery where I live. And let many of you been inside my place where I live. And it's just it's not a bed. It's just a mat on the floor about that that thick. That's happy for me. I don't if you put me on big bed, it's very hard to fall asleep. And a small bed is very very easy and comfortable for me. And so what am I doing with this big beds? They're buttons on them. I don't know what to do with those buttons. I must admit though, when I went inside the toilet in this fancy hotel, I well, I couldn't resist pressing the buttons and see what happened. It was crazy. They don't have toilet paper. They just press a button and something squirts out in the right place. And sometimes it's in the wrong place, but never mind. [laughter] you get it hot and cold and all sorts of stuff. It was good fun. But then after a while I said, can't I just have a simple place to stay and it was one thing which I noticed that it was obviously that somebody paid a lot of money for me to spend a night in this hotel. It was part of a conference tour and and I was thought I don't want to be in here. I just want to be a nice little cave know where I stay in serpentine or under just over here just a nice little room. You don't need all this special stuff. And you know after a few minutes I didn't want to be in there. I want to get something else more simple. It's just too elaborate for me. They had many sort of TVs in there. Obviously didn't know which one to turn on. I didn't turn any on. And after a while I realized that I was suffering. You know what was probably I think I heard later on it was a sixstar room in the hotel. Six star. Have you ever been in a six-star hotel room? It really sucks. It's terrible. If you're a [laughter] monk, why on earth? And I realized that what is suffering is not if it's a six-star hotel or if it's just out in the bush somewhere. Any place you don't want to be is called suffering. Any place, even a six-star hotel, any place you like to be, you can feel something nice, beautiful, or simple, or whatever it is. If you want to be here, then you're free. you're happy. If you don't want to be here, you are in a prison.

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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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