All stories, A–Z
1,224 Buddhist wisdom stories, analogies and jokes — page 5 of 13. Browse by theme or life situation, or describe your situation to get a match.
K
- Kindness after the dye shed — Wat Pah Pong: three monks dyeing robes two nights without sleep; young Brahm secretly helps so…
- King Canute ordering the tide — Analogy: Canute stands on the beach and orders the tide out — nature does not obey kings.
- King Rama IV opened the royal gate — A Peace Corps American arrives too early at Wat Bowon in Bangkok to ordain; a Thai man with keys…
- Kissed on the nose by an emu — An anagarika sitting calmly with eyes open at Jhana Grove is approached by a wild emu that has…
- Kissing it better — Growing up poor in Acton, west London, young Ajahn Brahm plays street football with migrant…
- Knocking in the coffin — the monks jumped first — A Thai lady who comes on Tuesdays says an old woman in her village was in the coffin ready for…
L
- Labour energy, not labour pain — A monastery full of monks in north-east Thailand kept a book on how to give birth. It came from a…
- Lakshmi's knitted socks on Friday night — Before a Friday talk Lakshmi gave him hand-knitted socks he rarely wears; he put them on anyway,…
- Lao Tzu and the beautiful sunset — A disciple walking with Lao Tzu breaks the rule of silence to exclaim at a sunset and is never…
- Late-night Thai TV in Bangkok — After flying Perth–Bangkok from a 3.30 a.m. start, Ajahn Brahm is scheduled for a 10.30 p.m. live…
- Laughing when you hit your head — As a young monk in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm travelled to ceremonies in the back of a ute under a…
- LAX bomb scare — LAPD with machine guns — Los Angeles airport bomb scare wakes him better than coffee; Canadian-terminal walk; LAPD car…
- Let her come and bow — Someone in Sydney who watched a video of Ajahn Brahm's Sri Lanka trip says what impressed him most…
- Let them go to the nightclub with your permission — A widowed close disciple worried about her kids wanting nightclubs with drugs and alcohol. He said…
- Letting the rip carry him out — A New Zealand monk, tramping with a friend on a hot day, reaches a secluded, pristine beach in (he…
- Londoners laughed at the robes — Walking London streets in robes; strangers laugh at his appearance before he understands why —…
- 'Look out, behind you!' — Simile from his pre-monk cinema days: in a horror film someone in the audience always shouts 'Look…
- Looking for a tortoise with a moustache — Ajahn Chah used to say that looking for a happiness that doesn't exist is like looking for a…
- Looking for matches by candlelight — Analogy: a man has rice, water and wood but hunts for matches — by the light of a candle already…
- Looking for the perfect partner — A rich, gorgeous, double-first graduate decides he's so perfect he must marry the most perfect…
- Looking through the other end of the telescope — At a seminar in the old observatory next to Parliament House in Perth, a Catholic woman honestly…
- Loose robes at the yacht club — After a talk on Buddhism to Perth executives at a yacht/boat club, a woman who grew up in a…
- Lost in the mist: follow the stream — As a student in the far north of Scotland, the youth-hostel warden sends him up a second mountain…
- Lower where you should be — Just before a talk at Nollamara a woman shows with her hands: 'this is where I should be, this is…
- Lying down for the benefit of all beings — The Buddha takes an afternoon nap, and Māra taunts him: you're no real monk — lazy, sleeping while…
M
- Magnolia Flora took the CD — After a Melbourne University talk, publisher Magnolia Flora offers to publish; Brahm pulls a…
- Maha Bua sat in the cool centre of the fever — Visiting Ajahn Maha Bua (late king's teacher), Brahm hears his talk about malaria under Ajahn Man:…
- Mahinda's mango-tree riddle — He says the first monk in Sri Lanka (Mahinda) tested the king with a riddle about a mango tree and…
- “Make him fall in love again — then divorce him” — A Singapore woman, convinced her husband has a mistress, tells a marriage counsellor she just…
- Make-up before the cathedral sermon — The Dean of St George's Cathedral, Perth, invites Ajahn Brahm to give the Sunday eucharist sermon…
- Mango orchard planted by the Buddha — First-year monk puzzled — no mango trees at Wat Pah Pong. Ajahn Chah: the monastery is a mango…
- Marquee or wigwam: 'You're too tense' — A man tells his psychologist: some days he's sure he's a marquee; other days he's sure he's a…
- Married 25 years and strangers on holiday — After about 25 years of marriage, when the last child leaves home, a couple take their first…
- May you get whatever you want as soon as you want it — Middle-Eastern friend: second-worst curse is fleas of a thousand camels in your armpits; worst is…
- Meditate in the restroom — In the US toilets are called restrooms. When tired or stressed, find an empty cubicle and…
- Meditating mum — knife and gas threats — Armadale Tuesday-night mum of a four- and six-year-old sits anyway. Kids climb, demand water, pull…
- Meditating through Cambridge finals — During six days of Natural Sciences finals in 1972 — three hours each morning and afternoon —…
- Meditating through the fever — Three or four weeks into an undiagnosed fever (later found to be scrub typhus) in a basic Ubon…
- Meditating through the flood — An Indonesian monk Ajahn Brahm knew and questioned tells him that as a layman wanting to be a…
- Meeting the monk who could read minds — As a very young monk Ajahn Brahm is afraid to meet a reputed mind-reader in case his thoughts are…
- Men don't cry in Australia — Aussie retreatant cries in meditation; last cry was at 11–12 when his father said men don't cry in…
- Milk for the vegan cat — Years ago, while vegetarian, Ajahn Brahm stays in a house whose owners are trying to make their…
- Minus 36 — airports closed — Visiting somewhere so cold (about −36°) that airports and roads shut; wandering in a frozen world…
- Miso soup against the bomb — When Ajahn Brahm first came to Perth in the early 1980s, many feared nuclear war between the US…
- 'Miss, can we have quiet time now?' — A deputy principal who learned meditation with Ajahn Brahm teaches her Year 6 class 'quiet time'…
- Missed lunch for the woman at the airport — At lunchtime a call: a woman in crisis had stabbed her mother-in-law (hospitalised), fled to the…
- Mistaken for a circus clown — Walking with his cousin through Stoke-on-Trent one Sunday morning, robed Ajahn Brahm notices…
- Mixed vegetables at the autopsy — When the monks are allowed to watch an autopsy, the Scottish pathologist opens the stomach to find…
- Monastery waiting list — want to be here — Prisoner asks what monastery life is like; routine is far more austere than WA prison, yet there…
- “Monastery” — a word from his mother with Alzheimer's — Visiting his mother in London, who no longer recognises him, Ajahn Brahm spends two hours with…
- Money or wisdom? — Gandhi's law professor asks him: if you found two bags in the street, one of money and one of…
- Monk at Centrelink: prove you exist — Applying for a Commonwealth seniors card, Ajahn Brahm is asked to prove who he is. Forty-three…
- Monk uncle spoils the brother's parenting lecture — Visiting as 'monk uncle', Brahm's niece and nephews ask what Dad was like young; he starts listing…
- Mortal enemies who go out to dinner — Jerry Hansen, who built the retreat centre, told Ajahn Brahm he would fight publicly with union…
- Most humble monk in the Guinness Book — He jokes about writing to Guinness to be listed as the most humble monk in the world — an oxymoron…
- Mother Teresa held the man from the gutter — Journalist with Mother Teresa watches her pick up a stinking, oozing cancer patient from a…
- Mother's mantel shelf and the wombat — Each visit Ajahn Brahm brings his mother another stuffed Australian animal; when the big wombat…
- Mouse-to-mouse resuscitation — Mickey and Minnie Mouse are in a car accident; Minnie is badly injured, but Mickey saves her life.…
- Move huts every two years — by wheelbarrow — Bodhinyana rule: monks may stay in a hut only two years, then must move — no tractor or car, only…
- Mr Bear's third wish — A magic duck grants a bear and a rabbit three wishes each to stop chasing. The bear wishes all…
- Mr Howard — the jolly maths teacher — School maths head Mr Howard never scolds; laughs with students; praises them when they catch his…
- Mr Jones — afternoon off for Wembley — Scary disciplinarian primary teacher Mr Jones. Dad has two World Cup England–Poland tickets at…
- Mrs. Calm and Mr. Insight climb the hill — Mrs. Samatha (calm) climbs a hill for its peace; her husband Mr. Vipassana (insight) climbs it for…
- Mum kissed his scraped knee better — As a boy playing soccer in the London streets he falls, scrapes the skin off his knees, and runs…
- Mum left him on the High Street — As a child in London his mother leaves him outside on the High Street while she shops — early…
- Mum's blessing at seventeen — At seventeen, with a sleeping bag and his guitar, he hitchhiked from London to North Africa to…
- Mummy, you're nicer after meditation — A tired Armadale Tuesday-night mother almost skips class until her six-year-old insists she go —…
- Muslim woman on the Buddhist retreat — At the Redemptorist retreat centre in North Perth a woman in hijab joins his retreat; she removes…
- “My eye is the biggest thing in the world” — Asked what the biggest thing in the world is, classmates say daddy, an elephant, a mountain;…
- My father's resolution — His father never spoke of his own father in Liverpool. At 14 or 15 Ajahn Brahm finally gets it out…
- “My nose is too big” — In his first year in Perth a 13-year-old girl, brought by her father after every other…
- My son is a sports mechanic — A Russian boasts his son earns millions. Doctor? Lawyer? No — sports mechanic: he fixes soccer…
- My soul is dark — Years ago at Port Hedland detention centre, Brahm sits with a ~22-year-old Cambodian refugee held…
- My soulmate is out there somewhere — A woman around sixty kept coming to say she knew her soulmate was waiting somewhere; he kept…
N
- Naked in the coffin — hell has air-con — Dying businessman asks to be buried naked — hell is hot, no clothes needed. Days later his naked…
- Nandivisāla the ox — A poor farmer, cheated year after year by the village merchant, sits depressed under a tree when…
- Nasrudin at the archery stall: “That was me” — Mulla Nasrudin takes his students to a fair and tries the archery stall. The first arrow falls…
- 'Never mind, we'll get another one' — When Ajahn Brahm was at university, another student in his lab blew up an expensive piece of…
- New monks ask mum and dad for forgiveness — At Bodhinyana ordinations the candidates bow three times to their parents and ask forgiveness for…
- Newton's plague year was his most fruitful — Cambridge email during COVID notes the college last fully shut for plague in 1665–66. Isaac Newton…
- Next to a media heir at the urinal — At a Parliament House state dinner for Queen Elizabeth II, Ajahn Brahm finds himself at the urinal…
- Nick's kindness cracked the 'dog' — Prisoner Nick at Karnet serves a hated senior officer who ignores him. Brahm challenges him to put…
- Nine Pepsi-Colas — lucky number nine — Thirsty on NE Thai tudong, Brahm resolves: if there are devas, get me a Pepsi. Walks past the…
- Nine years dreaming of fish and chips — After nine years of NE Thai monastery food (frogs, snails, buffalo afterbirth), Brahm finally gets…
- No alcohol from sunrise to sunset — for vassa — Thai alcoholic vows during rains retreat: no drink sunrise to sunset; hangs at the temple all day;…
- No bad hair days — He hated hairdressers as a kid — they never got it right. Shave your head and it's always right:…
- No BS — Fremantle jail audience — Teaching in old Fremantle jail while it was still open; prisoners warn: no BS — if we disagree we…
- No electricity on the big day — On the morning of the ceremony starting the rains retreat at Bodhinyana — the monastery's…
- No escape, even in the toilet — Returning exhausted from Los Angeles via Singapore, Ajahn Brahm is met at the gate by supporters…
- No real ghost has ever hurt a human — Cambridge/London Psychic Research friend Dr Tony Cornell — 'head ghost hunter of Great Britain and…
- No Sex in the Monastery — Someone told him Sarah Jessica Parker had been seen in a US coffee shop reading Opening the Door…
- No side entrance — through the public bar — Lions Club talk at the back of a Pinjarra pub; he expects a side door for the monk — there is only…
- No such thing as a sudden heart attack — Cardiologist summary: heart attacks don't come out of the blue — many body signals precede the big…
- No toilet stops — On a six- or seven-hour bus journey across north-east Thailand, the senior monk (captioned as…
- No visitors — except Ajahn Brahm — A Tibetan nun dying in Shenton Park hospice asked him to come, but the nurse barred visitors until…
- Not until it cries — A wealthy 65-year-old career woman, never married, has a baby through a fertility clinic. Friends…
- 'Nothing wrong with being crazy' — At Cambridge in the 1970s a friend who had taken LSD came up to Ajahn Brahm saying, 'I think I'm…
- 'Now I've got you exactly where I want you' — A monk visiting his family in Chicago slips on the ice and breaks his leg. When his mother comes…
- 'Now the drugs are wearing off' — A man coming round from an anaesthetic sees his wife at his bedside: 'My gosh, you are beautiful.'…
- Nudge the bushfire — From the 1991 crown fire at Serpentine he learned you can't control a bushfire by facing it…