Stories about addiction
11 Buddhist wisdom stories about addiction from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Chah's cure for sexual fantasiesStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A very good monk, a friend from Ajahn Brahm's early years, couldn't stop having sexual fantasies and asked Ajahn Chah how to stop. 'Very easy. Next time there's a public talk,…
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When one of the people we know very well - he's a very, very good monk, but he couldn't stop having sexual fantasies, he was addicted to sexual fantasies. So he went to see the great Ajahn Chah and he said: ‘What can I do to stop these things? I want to be a monk, I want to meditate, how can I stop my addiction to sexual fantasies?’ ‘Very easy. All you need to do is the next time there's a public talk, you get up and give the talk and tell them exactly what you're thinking. All your sexual fantasies in detail. People are very interested, they'll probably listen all the while through’. [laughter] But of course, that's far too embarrassing, he never did it.
- Bungee jumping looked like tortureStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At Adventure World Bibra Lake he first sees bungee jumping and thinks it is how interrogators throw people from helicopters — yet people pay for the thrill.
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I'd never seen anyone do a bungee jump before and I thought that's what they did to torture people to get information out of them, you know, throw them out of a of a of a helicopter
- Cambridge medicine — then mowing lawnsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: One of Ajahn Brahm's best school friends won a place to study medicine at Cambridge, started on marijuana, progressed to heroin, was expelled for stealing from medical-school…
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One of my best friends at school, he also went to Cambridge with me, studying medicine. Imagine getting a place in Cambridge University to study medicine. What a great start in life. Started taking marijuana. You don't control yourself. You're lost. And eventually heroin. Became an addict, got kicked out of university from stealing from the medical supplies at the uh the med school. And the last time I saw him, he was mowing people's lawns, just trying to get by. A brilliant man. And he was one of my friends. Now, when I was a young monk so in Thailand, my other friends said that you know, that he got He even knows our friend, whenever you go to our house, he would steal, steal.
- Giving up beer at 18Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young Buddhist student who loved beer, Ajahn Brahm was told by his teacher that he shouldn't drink. He tried giving it up and felt a great sense of power — he had a choice…
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that's what I did, when I was a young man, I was a Buddhist and my teacher kept on telling me: ‘You shouldn't drink alcohol’. I liked my beer, I didn't like the other stuff, but beer, I used to love beer. And he said: ‘No, you can't take that anymore, you're a Buddhist, you meditate. ‘Do I really have to?’ He said: ‘yes, you do’, so I said: ‘okay I'll give it a try.’ And as soon as I tried it, just giving up beer, I felt this great sense of power inside of me. It was like I had the choice and I was exercising the choice. I could take it or leave it, I was proving to myself I could leave it. And I could go into a party and still enjoy myself and have… Actually, I found out it was more fun when I was sober. Okay, I was only 18-19 at the time. The best time at a party, when you find a nice girl, you’re in the corner, messing around… when I used to have beer and alcohol, I didn't remember that part. [laughter] And that was the best part. And when I was sober, I had much more fun. And so little things like that, ordinary things, meant you started to enjoy yourself more. Which meant, what's the point of going back to alcohol? And I was a student at the time it cost so much money, I had so much more money to use for other things.
- Giving up tea for three monthsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: People told Ajahn Brahm he was addicted to tea. So he decided to give it up for the three-month Rains Retreat. The monks begged him not to: another monk had tried it and was 'a…
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Believe it or not, that one year people kept on telling me: ‘Ajahn Brahm, you’re addicted to tea. You always have your cup of tea. Cup of tea in the morning, cup of tea in the afternoon.’ I said: ‘okay, I'm going to give it up for three months’. And then all the monks came up to me and said: ‘Please don't do that’. I said: ‘why not?’ - ‘Because’, they said, ‘another monk tried that and he was a pain in the butt for three months without his tea - he was such an awful person to live with’. 'Well no', I said: ‘I'm going to try it to see if I'm addicted to it.’ So I gave it up for three months. I was very happy, very peaceful, no problem at all.
- No alcohol from sunrise to sunset — for vassaStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Thai alcoholic vows during rains retreat: no drink sunrise to sunset; hangs at the temple all day; tops up before dawn and after sunset — the best he can do, and it is hard.
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alcoholic but he came up to us and he said during the wasser period for three months I'm not going to drink any alcohol from sunrise to sunset and this gentleman that was a very big sacrifice for him you could see it he would come to the temple and try and hang out in the temple all day because he knew there was no alcohol there and to try and make sure he kept his precept and he was waiting and waiting and waiting in the evening for sunset throughout he'd have some alcohol and he had a big top up before the Sun rose because that's the best he could do
- Sensual pleasure is a loanAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: The Buddha's simile, as Ajahn Brahm gives it: sensual pleasure is like taking out a loan — joy at first, then the payback; and to repay it you take another, bigger loan, until…
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he compared such sensuality like to borrowing money, taking out a loan. Which is actually very deep and profound because when say you are watching pornography or you know getting into some sort of sensuality there's a lot of joy there at the beginning. But often we have to pay it back afterwards. And sometimes like a loan the only way you can pay it back is by taking out another loan to the pay off the original debt and the loan gets bigger and bigger and bigger until one gets into such a great financial mess, there's no way you can actually pay back your loan.
- Stop the train as it leaves the stationAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile: a train going 110 km/h with all its weight can't stop for an obstruction — it takes half a kilometre, which is why there are crashes at level crossings. Catching lust or…
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What mindfulness does is like trying to stop a train. When a train has left the station, it's going 110 kilometers an hour down the track with so much weight behind it. If the train driver tries to stops and put on the breaks because there's an obstruction on the road or on the rails in front of it, sometimes you just can't do that. It's going too fast and the momentum is too strong. A train going that fast takes maybe half a kilometer to come to a halt which is why that sometimes there are these terrible crashes when a car crosses the railway line. The driver sees it but it's going too fast to stop. This is what happens when we try to catch our lust or whatever, our anger, when it's a bit too late. It's gone too fast, the momentum is too strong, we can't stop it straight away. Many of you know that when you're in the power of lust, you can't stop just straightaway. You just can't say no I'm going to stop now. It's like a train just trying to pull on the breaks and stop immediately, it just cannot be done. But the best time to stop the train is when it's first moving out of the station. It's maybe going at one kilometer an hour and then you can put on the break, it's easy to stop it.
- 'Thank you for saving my life'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk assisting another teacher at a retreat in Oban, Scotland, Ajahn Brahm is dulled by the usual complaints — until a woman comes to thank the teacher for saving her…
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this anecdote I'm not sure when the last time I told it but this happened in the fishing village of Oban in the northwest of Scotland it was not the summertime when it's really beautiful it was maybe spring time maybe about this time or maybe just February cold but we could hire a place to have a retreat as really have you been to the north west of Scotland is through modes it was peaceful just a fishing village and with her I thought as a hotel or something it was a nice retreat center there well steer but a place where people could come just to do some meditation and I was just listening to the same old stories again and again again again about not being able to meditate and not being good enough having problems with the family at the same old same old and then this woman came in and she really shook me out of my miletti dullness she said to the the teacher they'll come here to thank you for saving my life people can say that but when it's real when you really have a have had your life saved you know big time I just woke up with the power of where that came from and I was really interesting why what had happened what had happened with this woman she told her story interesting story that she was a student somewhere in middle England and she got a bit difficult with their studies with her social life with the pressures on any young woman trying to sort of achieve under pressure and she got a little bit depressed and the GP at the time just this was maybe 40 years ago GP at the time just gave her some volumes just no easy to take this pills but she got addicted got addicted to valium and sometimes that some things are very hard to break off their addiction to then I told the monks I think on Wednesday night I knew this gentleman who was addicted to brake fluid it's a brain fluid but he said he could he could stop at any time that was a joke addicted to brake fluid but he could stop at any time you fishing there what can we expect from our children anyway bingo serious dated the valium and when she comes on one of these retreats I have these things called no precepts especially the Five Precepts sometimes people listen and they don't really understand totally I needs Buddha's not supposed to take alcohol or drugs fifth precept and it wasn't explained to this means like Norma dissing all drugs like the recreational drugs nothing about sort of you know if you've been prescribed in medicine for by your doctors but she never understood that she got it wrong but on a retreat when it's nice and peaceful people aren't talking much to one another they're smiling they're kind everything is there there's no stress she could give up that valium for nine days it was hard but you know she could do it and she started to feel what it's like to be without that drug in their system not totally but then the problem came when they were treat finished and she thought I've done nine days this see if I can carry on without the valium so she decided to throw the pills away but she never realized that being in a retreat in a place of safety where people nice and kind you don't feel the people are threatening you or putting pressure on you to be anything but then she had to go through Glasgow to get back home and that meant going through Glasgow railway station you been through any terminus a station this is so distressing it soaked crazy it's just people all over the place running this way and and so noisy it's like a chaotic environment and she said that she almost has totally lost it and of course you can imagine when someone is that sensitive so actually it's a go through a railway station not like Perth Mint think more like like Sydney central or the Victoria Station in England or something it's crazy place and then she managed to get back home where she said that she spent the next I was a month I think just sitting in a chair hardly able to do anything as the effects of that works slowly wore off and it is not recommended for people to do such cold turkey it was just by mistake she did this because she started off misunderstanding about the precepts in Buddhism and had a supportive start and then just managed just to keep it together long enough to get back home and was this immobilized just sitting in a chair but she got through it and she said thank you because now she has her life back a life which is clear and free said thank you no she left and I was so impressed I remember that certainly the details that I made a resolution arrogant young monk I was said if I if I ever do that and hear someone say that because of how I've served whatever I've done I Tim Brom thank you for saving my life I think my life had found its meaning just one that's all I wanted just one
- The pipe ad that made beauty follow himStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Old TV pipe-tobacco ad: man lights up outside a greengrocer and beautiful women stream out of shop, bank, newsagent to follow him — selling addiction as glamour.
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this guy lit the pipe and then first of all this beautiful young blonde just left the the shop I think it was maybe just a green grosser shop selling fruit and veg and she followed him. Another one came out of the bank, another one came out of the news agent until after about four or five, no maybe about only one or two minutes had this whole um line of the most beautiful, attractive women
- The worm that wanted its chocolate barJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A man with intestinal worms chooses the 'natural' treatment: every day for a week, at exactly noon, a cheese-sandwich suppository, and five minutes later a chocolate-bar one. At…
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Because there was this poor man who had intestinal worms. And he went to see the doctor and the doctor said: ‘Well, there's two treatments, it’s the chemical pills, the medication’ – he said: ‘I don't like these modern chemicals, I don't trust them, they do terrible things to the body’ – ‘So we got the natural way’ – ‘So I'll have the natural way’. So it's a bit uncomfortable, but it always works 100%. ‘I'll take the natural way’, he said. ‘Ok, well, every day, for the next week, exactly at noon, 12:00 noon precisely, I want you to put a suppository, up your backside, of a mini cheese sandwich. [laughter] And five minutes later, put another suppository: a mini chocolate bar. And do that for seven days and come back for your next appointment one week from today at 11:45.’ He did that, very uncomfortable, a bit embarrassing, but he followed the orders. When he went back for his next appointment, he said: ‘I can still feel the worms inside, you know, it didn't work!’ He said: ‘This is the last part of the treatment.’ And so, you know, trousers down, on the bench, and then the doctor put, exactly at twelve noon, another cheese sandwich suppository up his backside and then waited with a hammer. [laughter] Five past twelve, no chocolate bar. Ten past twelve, no chocolate bar. Quarter past twelve, this little head came out and the worm said: ‘Aaay, where's my chocolate bar?’ Whack! with a hammer, and that was the end of the worm.