Stories about assumptions
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about assumptions from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Just add water — baby powderJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Before the Berlin Wall fell, a man from communist Eastern Europe walks into his first Western supermarket: milk powder + water = milk; mashed-potato powder + water = potatoes;…
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this guy who came from the Eastern Europe this was before the fall of the burlin wall where in the communist countries they had very very few things and when he went into his first Super Market this guy from Eastern Europe was just amazed at the amount of product which was available to people what he was really amazed at you know he saw first of all milk powder cuz you know in the Eastern Europe you get milk from a cow here it's a packet of dust and so just add water and you get milk so wow these Wess are so clever you know just add water and you get milk and then he saw instant mashed potato again just powder just add water and you get potatoes CU you know you know if in the old days you had to peel the potatoes so boil them up and smash them before you get mashed potatoes so amazing but what really surprised him you thought wow these westerners they're just so incredibly intelligent don't know how they could do this cuz they saw after seeing the milk powder and the mashed potato powder he saw on one of the store's baby powder just that water you didn't realize that's not what baby powder meets
- The Muslim family at the airportStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a teaching tour of Indonesia, Muslims attend his talks and a veiled family rushes to the airport to have him sign the book they loved and take a last photo together.
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Even like Indonesia, my trip to Indonesia, that's where all the Muslim terrorists are, you know all the Bali bombers, they came from over there, but I had such a wonderful time with the Muslims, they came to all my talks, we had photos together, got interviewed and photographed in the Muslim newspapers. Even one Muslim family, they came to the airport, they just caught me in time, said "Oh, Ajahn Brahm, Ajahn Brahm you must sign our book, it's the best book we've ever had." So this whole Muslim family in the veils and everything, me in the middle with the book, having a last photograph taken together. Isn't that wonderful, when people of different religions can have so much fun together.
- The villages without griefStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Living nine years at a Thai cremation-ground monastery, Ajahn Brahm saw villagers bring their dead without grieving, which contradicted everything he had learned about loss.
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the monastery I was staying most of the time was a cremation ground. So all the villagers in the local area used that place for the funerals. So we'd do the funeral, we'd see all the villagers, they'd come, bring their dead, we'd do all the chanting and the services, we'd see them that afternoon, that evening, the next day. And there was something very strange, there was no grief, they just didn't cry, not just cry, they weren't even sad when somebody died. This was not suppressing their grief because you saw them every day, they just, wasn't there, it was a culture in which grief was absent and that really shocked me, and I was there nine years so this was no just, short visit, and I thought that was impossible because my learning had said that when you lose someone you love you have to have grief. The truth of the matter, there was no grief there.