Stories about alms
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about alms from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- The homeless man put his sandwich in the bowlStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: During a Perth conference a young monk skipped the free lunch to walk St Georges Terrace with his bowl; a homeless man stopped him and insisted on giving his sandwich. The monk…
Read full story
There was like a homeless man and he had a sandwich which he I don't know where he got his sandwich from. And he saw the monk and he stopped the monk and said, "Please stop and accept my sandwich." And the monk sort of opened his bowl lid and took a sandwich. Cuz when we go on alms round, we never ask for anything. We don't say, "Give me this, give me that." If somebody wishes to put some food into your bowl, they will do. And that's what he ate for his lunch that day. Not much. Where it came from was so wonderful and beautiful. We always feel that if somebody does a wonderful, kind, generous, sometimes you may say stupid act, that homeless man needed the food. No. The homeless man needed the opportunity to be kind. And that was even more he can get another sandwich somewhere. The opportunity to be kind and generous and do something from the heart. To actually to give instead of worrying about getting. Was something which was inspiring to that homeless man and something which that monk would never forget
- The tired schoolteacher on alms roundStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An old friend who became a schoolteacher visits Ajahn Brahm in northeast Thailand. Exhausted and stressed, he resists the dawn alms round; Brahm insists. Walking back afterwards…
Read full story
he came to visit me in thailand many many years ago and he was he became like a school teacher and i was a monk and he came to visit me in thailand and when he arrived there it's amazing to actually define me all that way and so i settled him into his room and i said one of the wonderful things to experience in those days in northeast thailand was the arms round in the morning could we get up really early at dawn and just as the they get slight the monks take their ball and they walk silently mindfully through the village and it's really poor people they get up early to put some rice in the monk's bowl and if you don't go there they sort of come and ask you where have you been we want you to come here seeing peaceful calm people first thing in the morning it starts our day and we'd really miss it if you never came so it was just a sight of peaceful people calm quiet people just walking through the village reminding them of their spirituality and they'd come in there and quietly they put a bit of rice in the poll and then we come back to the to the monastery afterwards for our meal and you know that i said this is one of the best times of the morning it's cool the light is perfect you know you must come and he said listen i'm just i'm so tired i get so stressed at work there's no way i can wake up at that time of the morning and i said you don't have to worry at all i'll come to your room and i'll knock on the door 15 minutes before we go so you can get time to get ready okay that was the agreement and i obviously did that and as we were walking back he thanked me because there was a wonderful time of the day and it was really spiritual peaceful kind people looking after one another and he on the way back he told me thank you for