All stories, A–Z

1,224 Buddhist wisdom stories, analogies and jokes — page 8 of 13. Browse by theme or life situation, or describe your situation to get a match.

T

The bikie and the girl on the bridge — A bikie gang, wanting good publicity, sees a crowd: a girl is about to jump off a bridge. One…
The bikies' funeral — A young bikie hits a lamp post and dies; his Buddhist mother asks Ajahn Brahm to support her, and…
The birds queued — and punished the queue-jumper — Near the Burmese border in hot season he put out a water bowl by a knothole. Birds of different…
The blank cheque he gave back — After a talk on generosity in which Ajahn Brahm muses that the finest gift would be a blank…
The blast that became a spiritual experience — WA northwest miner drills and sets explosives alone at night; a charge comes straight toward him —…
The blind cats of the closed coal mine — Ajahn Brahm recalls a journal article from decades earlier. After Thatcher's government closed a…
The blind elephants who felt a man — At a leadership conference on Hayman Island with Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and others, Ajahn Brahm…
The blister from a cold nail — At a public demonstration of the Cambridge psychical research society, a student is hypnotised to…
The bodhisattva at the bottom of the class — As a schoolteacher, Ajahn Brahm hands out report cards; a 12- or 13-year-old reads “30th of 30”…
The bomb next door in the Blitz — During the London Blitz a bomb falls right next to the terraced house where Ajahn Brahm's mother…
The bomb threat that saved the interfaith service — For years Ajahn Brahm chants at the rather dull Commonwealth Day interfaith service in St George's…
The bottle ghost — Told in Asia, where people fear ghosts: the most dangerous ghost in the world, one he has seen…
The boy who failed grade one three times — A north-east Thai boy fails grade one three years running, so he is sent to the village monastery,…
The boy who regretted remembering — After a talk on reincarnation at the London Buddhist Vihara, an 18- or 19-year-old comes up and…
The boy who spat on the classroom floor — A school friend teaches at a tough comprehensive in Wandsworth around the time of the Brixton…
The boy who stretched his seedlings — One of Ajahn Brahm's first meditation teachers recalls planting seeds with his father at five or…
The brochure that opened the till — Old-fashioned hardware counter; given a laminex brochure to choose colours; sets it on the…
The broken pot of ghee — The Buddha's simile, asked whether chanting for the dead helps them: break a clay pot of ghee over…
The bucket with so many holes — Coming from Cambridge to subsistence villages in northeast Thailand, Ajahn Brahm is shocked at how…
The Buddha relics multiplied — Doubting theoretical-physicist Brahm softens when he sees 'weird stuff': relics he left with…
The Buddhist fly went round three times — Teaching on camera about leaving blowflies alone, one lands on his nose and circles the mouth…
The Buddhist soldiers from the British Army — In the UK a group of Buddhists from the British Army come to see Ajahn Brahm. He had assumed…
The budgie's gone on holiday — Aged about four or five, Ajahn Brahm asks where the budgie is; Dad says it's gone on holiday. The…
The burglar who came back for compassion — An abbot finds a knife-wielding burglar at the donation box, hands him the key, notices how thin…
The caller who threatened the monks — A woman phones the monastery cursing and threatening to come with a rifle; Ajahn Brahm answers…
The camel's one more round — A man who told Ajahn Brahm the story after hearing the Nandivisāla tale arrived late at a…
The carrot who'll be a vegetable — Two carrots walk down St George's Terrace when a drunk driver mounts the pavement and hits one.…
The cat that steals the milk — Every morning a cat takes Ajahn Brahm's milk and walks off without thanks; he gives anyway because…
The cat that went to heaven — From a little book over 100 years old by a Western lady living in Japan (as he recalls): a…
The cats and the building sand — Bodhinyana is covered in gravel, so the monastery's cats treat any pile of sand as a luxury loo,…
The Cavendish warren — As a young Cambridge student he enters the Cavendish Laboratory warren — alleys, rooms, history…
The celebratory pork curry that ended his enlightenment — After four years as a monk Ajahn Brahm had a great satori and thought he was enlightened. That…
The celibate monk at the Gay Pride breakfast — When the Sunday Telegraph quotes the Dalai Lama as saying you can't be both Buddhist and gay,…
The channelled spirit at the roulette table — A man channels a powerful being who gives him lots of advice; what he really wants is cash. “Go to…
The chanting worked too well — Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his…
The cheap haunted London townhouse — Friend buys a London townhouse cheap because the agent admits it is haunted; first night midnight…
The CIA, the FBI, the LAPD and the rabbit — Testing his agencies, the President releases a rabbit in a forest: the CIA reports there is no…
The cockroach insurance claim — At the Serpentine retreat centre the air conditioning fails: a cockroach has crawled into the…
The coffin stuck halfway down — At a Chinese disciple's burial the ornate knobs on the coffin catch on the way down the grave; it…
The coffin that chased him home — Man flees a cemetery thinking he is safe; the coffin bumps after him; he jumps his front gate —…
The cold stone bench — A simile he made up: on life's journey you come to a rough, cold, lumpy stone bench, the only…
The cold that vanished mid-talk — On his first visit to Canberra, his hosts take Ajahn Brahm everywhere all day in the cold, getting…
The Colombia coach brought her World Cup team — The head coach of Colombia's women's soccer team, in Perth for the Women's World Cup, came to a…
The comfortable prison — Simile: someone born in a modern prison does well at prison school, works hard, gets a bigger cell…
The company that banned overtime — An English engineering firm Ajahn Brahm remembers as 'Farrell and Sons' wins a…
The conservative parents who became friends — One of Ajahn Brahm's first Perth funerals is for a young British Buddhist of 23 or 24 who dies of…
The convict who left his body to watch football — A meditation student at Karnet Prison Farm tells Ajahn Brahm that as a boy of five or six, having…
The corpse in the elevator — Funeral directors collecting a body from a top-floor old apartment find the gurney will not fit…
The cow that cried — After a meditation talk at Karnet Prison Farm, a prisoner — a murderer, born in Northern Ireland —…
The crab with a limp — Ajahn Chah's last teaching before he stopped teaching, acted out with his hands: a crab with a…
The cremation pyre exploded — and Ajahn Liem went to bed — Ajahn Liem, long Ajahn Chah's acting abbot, builds the crematorium for his teacher's royal funeral…
The crooked trees are the beautiful ones — At a mental-health conference a woman apologises to Ajahn Brahm: when he walked in she thought…
The cult-buster who ran from the Buddha statue — In the early North Perth centre, Western Australia's chief 'cult buster' comes to check the…
The Dalai Lama accepted the poor woman's skirt — Early story: dirt-poor woman offers the Dalai Lama an egg-stained/skirt gift; he accepts because…
The dancing lollipop lady — Being driven to the airport early one morning in London as children went to school, Ajahn Brahm…
The day after England lost to Poland — As a 22-year-old teacher, Ajahn Brahm watches England fail to qualify for the World Cup after…
The day I peed on a snake — After meditating all night in a Thai forest monastery, the tired young monk goes into the bush at…
The dead dog and the cat scan — Owner brings a dog to the vet insisting it is alive; the vet uses a live cat as a diagnostic…
The deathbed confession — A dying husband confesses to his devoted wife that he hasn't always been a good husband — there…
The deliberate mistake on the blackboard — School maths teacher, caught in an error on the blackboard, claims he put it there on purpose to…
The dentist appointment that never happened — At about seven, terrified of the dentist, the young Ajahn Brahm tries every trick — “Mummy, you…
The dentist lost the tooth relic — His dentist Jake kept an extracted cracked tooth as a possible relic to auction for the nuns'…
The diamond necklace deal — A man buys his wife a very expensive diamond necklace; she never talks to him for six months.…
The dog, the lion and the monkey — A dog wanders too far into an African forest and a lion decides to eat him. The dog finds some…
The donkey in the well — A farmer tries to bury a donkey that fell into a dry well; with every shovelful of dirt, the…
“The door of my house will always be open to you” — Remembering his father, dead almost 50 years, at a Thai New Year merit ceremony: when he was 13,…
The door prize — Imagine tonight's door prize is a first-class trip to Dharamsala for a private lunch with the…
The dreams that were right — until they weren't — A fellow monk told Ajahn Brahm he had twice dreamed truly: a recurring dream of his sister…
The drunk driver who drove home the police car — After the office Christmas party a Sydney man, well over the limit, risks driving home and is…
The duck that tried to nest in his afro — Young Brahm with a big curly Hendrix-style afro lies down in a London park; something tugs his…
The Elvis impersonator with the walking stick — At the old North Perth temple a man who had fallen off a roof and suffered brain damage starts…
The embassy couples who got back together — After his first book, opening with the two-bad-bricks story, becomes popular, Ajahn Brahm is…
The emperor in five garments — Simile he says he usually keeps for retreats: a powerful emperor is completely covered by boots,…
The emperor jailed the pope over reincarnation — Early-church framing: a pope who held reincarnation is ordered by the emperor to ban it; refusal…
The emperor visits the two hermits — Mahayana tale: top-of-mountain hermit and mid-slope hermit; Chinese emperor climbs to seek counsel…
The emperor's ring: “This too will pass” — A young emperor feasts in good times and sulks in bad, so neither works; his ministers give him a…
The emperor's three questions — Ajahn Brahm summarises the short story (by Tolstoy) that changed his life: an emperor, fed up with…
The empty drum and the babbling brook — An empty drum makes a big noise when you bang it; a solid piece of wood doesn't. Small mountain…
The encyclopedia he felt guilty for selling — As a poor student he sold children's encyclopedias door to door, trained to make parents feel…
The Eskimo in the desert — A man dying of thirst in the desert meets a real Eskimo with sled and huskies, and gasps with…
The ex-Marine monk who caught his fits early — A monk friend, shot in the head as a US Marine in Vietnam, has epileptic fits from the brain…
'The execution was too fast' — At a conference on reconciliation and forgiveness, a Catholic priest tells Ajahn Brahm of…
The executive who slept for three days — On a retreat in Sydney many years ago, an executive arrived at 11:30 at night after tying up loose…
The fall from the ladder — Building the ablution block at Serpentine, he falls a long way when a fully extended ladder loses…
The fan at the restaurant window — Having a quiet sponsored lunch in a little restaurant in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong, Ajahn Brahm sees…
The father in the singlet — When the Buddhist Society had just opened a bank account for a future nuns' monastery, with only a…
The father who carried his son through the race — From a video someone sent him: an American father always takes his autistic son with him on…
The fifth child wished to need no more wishes — Five children play the wishing game. First wants a Big Mac; second a McDonald's restaurant; third…
The filthy rag — In front of the other monks, a monk angrily tells Ajahn Brahm that wiping his bowl with that…
The first beer tasted awful — At 14 in London, rebellious and egged on by mates, he sneaks his first glass of beer (the drinking…
The floor the monks finished overnight — Building Jhana Grove for an Easter 2008 opening by its patron, former Premier Geoff Gallop, Ajahn…
The flower pot physicists didn't see — At Imperial College, London, a flower pot is made to levitate with a hidden electromagnet under…
The forest monk chased by the tiger — Ajahn Dhammindu (caption: Mark Edge and Drew) tells of a wandering Thai forest monk who insists on…
The fortune tellers looked so poor — In Hong Kong Ajahn Brahm was taken to a street of fortune tellers who looked ill-dressed and out…
The foster-care leader who had been a foster child — At a Curtin medal ceremony, one recipient had been put into foster care as a child and suffered.…
The fourth cookie always went to the supervisor — A psychology experiment split volunteers into threes: two wrote a report, one checked it. When…
The fourth priest's confession — Four religious leaders, old friends, sit on a bench after a conference and confess their secret…
The framed man who couldn't face the public — A Buddhist jailed for murder, who had read Ajahn Brahm's books inside, is freed after a journalist…
The free afternoon after school — At 13 or 14, with an afternoon off school and all his homework done at lunchtime, the boy walks…
The frog beside the lotus — An old story: a frog living right by the lotus could never smell it because it was used to it;…

All stories, A–Z

1,224 Buddhist wisdom stories, analogies and jokes — page 8 of 13. Browse by theme or life situation, or describe your situation to get a match.

T

The bikie and the girl on the bridge — A bikie gang, wanting good publicity, sees a crowd: a girl is about to jump off a bridge. One…
The bikies' funeral — A young bikie hits a lamp post and dies; his Buddhist mother asks Ajahn Brahm to support her, and…
The birds queued — and punished the queue-jumper — Near the Burmese border in hot season he put out a water bowl by a knothole. Birds of different…
The blank cheque he gave back — After a talk on generosity in which Ajahn Brahm muses that the finest gift would be a blank…
The blast that became a spiritual experience — WA northwest miner drills and sets explosives alone at night; a charge comes straight toward him —…
The blind cats of the closed coal mine — Ajahn Brahm recalls a journal article from decades earlier. After Thatcher's government closed a…
The blind elephants who felt a man — At a leadership conference on Hayman Island with Kevin Rudd, Julia Gillard and others, Ajahn Brahm…
The blister from a cold nail — At a public demonstration of the Cambridge psychical research society, a student is hypnotised to…
The bodhisattva at the bottom of the class — As a schoolteacher, Ajahn Brahm hands out report cards; a 12- or 13-year-old reads “30th of 30”…
The bomb next door in the Blitz — During the London Blitz a bomb falls right next to the terraced house where Ajahn Brahm's mother…
The bomb threat that saved the interfaith service — For years Ajahn Brahm chants at the rather dull Commonwealth Day interfaith service in St George's…
The bottle ghost — Told in Asia, where people fear ghosts: the most dangerous ghost in the world, one he has seen…
The boy who failed grade one three times — A north-east Thai boy fails grade one three years running, so he is sent to the village monastery,…
The boy who regretted remembering — After a talk on reincarnation at the London Buddhist Vihara, an 18- or 19-year-old comes up and…
The boy who spat on the classroom floor — A school friend teaches at a tough comprehensive in Wandsworth around the time of the Brixton…
The boy who stretched his seedlings — One of Ajahn Brahm's first meditation teachers recalls planting seeds with his father at five or…
The brochure that opened the till — Old-fashioned hardware counter; given a laminex brochure to choose colours; sets it on the…
The broken pot of ghee — The Buddha's simile, asked whether chanting for the dead helps them: break a clay pot of ghee over…
The bucket with so many holes — Coming from Cambridge to subsistence villages in northeast Thailand, Ajahn Brahm is shocked at how…
The Buddha relics multiplied — Doubting theoretical-physicist Brahm softens when he sees 'weird stuff': relics he left with…
The Buddhist fly went round three times — Teaching on camera about leaving blowflies alone, one lands on his nose and circles the mouth…
The Buddhist soldiers from the British Army — In the UK a group of Buddhists from the British Army come to see Ajahn Brahm. He had assumed…
The budgie's gone on holiday — Aged about four or five, Ajahn Brahm asks where the budgie is; Dad says it's gone on holiday. The…
The burglar who came back for compassion — An abbot finds a knife-wielding burglar at the donation box, hands him the key, notices how thin…
The caller who threatened the monks — A woman phones the monastery cursing and threatening to come with a rifle; Ajahn Brahm answers…
The camel's one more round — A man who told Ajahn Brahm the story after hearing the Nandivisāla tale arrived late at a…
The carrot who'll be a vegetable — Two carrots walk down St George's Terrace when a drunk driver mounts the pavement and hits one.…
The cat that steals the milk — Every morning a cat takes Ajahn Brahm's milk and walks off without thanks; he gives anyway because…
The cat that went to heaven — From a little book over 100 years old by a Western lady living in Japan (as he recalls): a…
The cats and the building sand — Bodhinyana is covered in gravel, so the monastery's cats treat any pile of sand as a luxury loo,…
The Cavendish warren — As a young Cambridge student he enters the Cavendish Laboratory warren — alleys, rooms, history…
The celebratory pork curry that ended his enlightenment — After four years as a monk Ajahn Brahm had a great satori and thought he was enlightened. That…
The celibate monk at the Gay Pride breakfast — When the Sunday Telegraph quotes the Dalai Lama as saying you can't be both Buddhist and gay,…
The channelled spirit at the roulette table — A man channels a powerful being who gives him lots of advice; what he really wants is cash. “Go to…
The chanting worked too well — Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his…
The cheap haunted London townhouse — Friend buys a London townhouse cheap because the agent admits it is haunted; first night midnight…
The CIA, the FBI, the LAPD and the rabbit — Testing his agencies, the President releases a rabbit in a forest: the CIA reports there is no…
The cockroach insurance claim — At the Serpentine retreat centre the air conditioning fails: a cockroach has crawled into the…
The coffin stuck halfway down — At a Chinese disciple's burial the ornate knobs on the coffin catch on the way down the grave; it…
The coffin that chased him home — Man flees a cemetery thinking he is safe; the coffin bumps after him; he jumps his front gate —…
The cold stone bench — A simile he made up: on life's journey you come to a rough, cold, lumpy stone bench, the only…
The cold that vanished mid-talk — On his first visit to Canberra, his hosts take Ajahn Brahm everywhere all day in the cold, getting…
The Colombia coach brought her World Cup team — The head coach of Colombia's women's soccer team, in Perth for the Women's World Cup, came to a…
The comfortable prison — Simile: someone born in a modern prison does well at prison school, works hard, gets a bigger cell…
The company that banned overtime — An English engineering firm Ajahn Brahm remembers as 'Farrell and Sons' wins a…
The conservative parents who became friends — One of Ajahn Brahm's first Perth funerals is for a young British Buddhist of 23 or 24 who dies of…
The convict who left his body to watch football — A meditation student at Karnet Prison Farm tells Ajahn Brahm that as a boy of five or six, having…
The corpse in the elevator — Funeral directors collecting a body from a top-floor old apartment find the gurney will not fit…
The cow that cried — After a meditation talk at Karnet Prison Farm, a prisoner — a murderer, born in Northern Ireland —…
The crab with a limp — Ajahn Chah's last teaching before he stopped teaching, acted out with his hands: a crab with a…
The cremation pyre exploded — and Ajahn Liem went to bed — Ajahn Liem, long Ajahn Chah's acting abbot, builds the crematorium for his teacher's royal funeral…
The crooked trees are the beautiful ones — At a mental-health conference a woman apologises to Ajahn Brahm: when he walked in she thought…
The cult-buster who ran from the Buddha statue — In the early North Perth centre, Western Australia's chief 'cult buster' comes to check the…
The Dalai Lama accepted the poor woman's skirt — Early story: dirt-poor woman offers the Dalai Lama an egg-stained/skirt gift; he accepts because…
The dancing lollipop lady — Being driven to the airport early one morning in London as children went to school, Ajahn Brahm…
The day after England lost to Poland — As a 22-year-old teacher, Ajahn Brahm watches England fail to qualify for the World Cup after…
The day I peed on a snake — After meditating all night in a Thai forest monastery, the tired young monk goes into the bush at…
The dead dog and the cat scan — Owner brings a dog to the vet insisting it is alive; the vet uses a live cat as a diagnostic…
The deathbed confession — A dying husband confesses to his devoted wife that he hasn't always been a good husband — there…
The deliberate mistake on the blackboard — School maths teacher, caught in an error on the blackboard, claims he put it there on purpose to…
The dentist appointment that never happened — At about seven, terrified of the dentist, the young Ajahn Brahm tries every trick — “Mummy, you…
The dentist lost the tooth relic — His dentist Jake kept an extracted cracked tooth as a possible relic to auction for the nuns'…
The diamond necklace deal — A man buys his wife a very expensive diamond necklace; she never talks to him for six months.…
The dog, the lion and the monkey — A dog wanders too far into an African forest and a lion decides to eat him. The dog finds some…
The donkey in the well — A farmer tries to bury a donkey that fell into a dry well; with every shovelful of dirt, the…
“The door of my house will always be open to you” — Remembering his father, dead almost 50 years, at a Thai New Year merit ceremony: when he was 13,…
The door prize — Imagine tonight's door prize is a first-class trip to Dharamsala for a private lunch with the…
The dreams that were right — until they weren't — A fellow monk told Ajahn Brahm he had twice dreamed truly: a recurring dream of his sister…
The drunk driver who drove home the police car — After the office Christmas party a Sydney man, well over the limit, risks driving home and is…
The duck that tried to nest in his afro — Young Brahm with a big curly Hendrix-style afro lies down in a London park; something tugs his…
The Elvis impersonator with the walking stick — At the old North Perth temple a man who had fallen off a roof and suffered brain damage starts…
The embassy couples who got back together — After his first book, opening with the two-bad-bricks story, becomes popular, Ajahn Brahm is…
The emperor in five garments — Simile he says he usually keeps for retreats: a powerful emperor is completely covered by boots,…
The emperor jailed the pope over reincarnation — Early-church framing: a pope who held reincarnation is ordered by the emperor to ban it; refusal…
The emperor visits the two hermits — Mahayana tale: top-of-mountain hermit and mid-slope hermit; Chinese emperor climbs to seek counsel…
The emperor's ring: “This too will pass” — A young emperor feasts in good times and sulks in bad, so neither works; his ministers give him a…
The emperor's three questions — Ajahn Brahm summarises the short story (by Tolstoy) that changed his life: an emperor, fed up with…
The empty drum and the babbling brook — An empty drum makes a big noise when you bang it; a solid piece of wood doesn't. Small mountain…
The encyclopedia he felt guilty for selling — As a poor student he sold children's encyclopedias door to door, trained to make parents feel…
The Eskimo in the desert — A man dying of thirst in the desert meets a real Eskimo with sled and huskies, and gasps with…
The ex-Marine monk who caught his fits early — A monk friend, shot in the head as a US Marine in Vietnam, has epileptic fits from the brain…
'The execution was too fast' — At a conference on reconciliation and forgiveness, a Catholic priest tells Ajahn Brahm of…
The executive who slept for three days — On a retreat in Sydney many years ago, an executive arrived at 11:30 at night after tying up loose…
The fall from the ladder — Building the ablution block at Serpentine, he falls a long way when a fully extended ladder loses…
The fan at the restaurant window — Having a quiet sponsored lunch in a little restaurant in Kennedy Town, Hong Kong, Ajahn Brahm sees…
The father in the singlet — When the Buddhist Society had just opened a bank account for a future nuns' monastery, with only a…
The father who carried his son through the race — From a video someone sent him: an American father always takes his autistic son with him on…
The fifth child wished to need no more wishes — Five children play the wishing game. First wants a Big Mac; second a McDonald's restaurant; third…
The filthy rag — In front of the other monks, a monk angrily tells Ajahn Brahm that wiping his bowl with that…
The first beer tasted awful — At 14 in London, rebellious and egged on by mates, he sneaks his first glass of beer (the drinking…
The floor the monks finished overnight — Building Jhana Grove for an Easter 2008 opening by its patron, former Premier Geoff Gallop, Ajahn…
The flower pot physicists didn't see — At Imperial College, London, a flower pot is made to levitate with a hidden electromagnet under…
The forest monk chased by the tiger — Ajahn Dhammindu (caption: Mark Edge and Drew) tells of a wandering Thai forest monk who insists on…
The fortune tellers looked so poor — In Hong Kong Ajahn Brahm was taken to a street of fortune tellers who looked ill-dressed and out…
The foster-care leader who had been a foster child — At a Curtin medal ceremony, one recipient had been put into foster care as a child and suffered.…
The fourth cookie always went to the supervisor — A psychology experiment split volunteers into threes: two wrote a report, one checked it. When…
The fourth priest's confession — Four religious leaders, old friends, sit on a bench after a conference and confess their secret…
The framed man who couldn't face the public — A Buddhist jailed for murder, who had read Ajahn Brahm's books inside, is freed after a journalist…
The free afternoon after school — At 13 or 14, with an afternoon off school and all his homework done at lunchtime, the boy walks…
The frog beside the lotus — An old story: a frog living right by the lotus could never smell it because it was used to it;…