Stories about attitude
8 Buddhist wisdom stories about attitude from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Doctor, there's something right with me — I'm sickJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Instead of 'there's something wrong with me, doctor', say there's something right with me — I'm sick again. Sickness is the body responding; cultural shame makes it worse. He…
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Doctor, there's something right with me. I'm sick again. There's nothing wrong with being sick. Why do people add this this cultural shame on being sick? Why do you think you've made some big mistake? You're sick again. And you should try so hard next time not to be sick. If you try to be healthy, that makes you sick. One of the reasons I'm healthy because I don't even try to be healthy
- Hell will freeze over — Freo wonJoke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Two Fremantle labourers enjoy hotter and hotter hell (Pilbara, SE Asia); devil freezes it — they cheer: resolution was hell freezes over before Freo wins the cup — so Freo must…
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these couple of Australians from Freo. And they went to some hell realm. And it was really hot. But they were used to it. And they were working very hard, but they were used to it. They were laborers on a building site before. And then this little devil fellow saw these two working very hard and thought, "They're enjoying this." So, he decided to turn the temperature up and make it even hotter. And these two Australians enjoyed it even more. They said, "It's like working up in in the Pilbara, in the mines. It's really hot up there." And so, the devil thought, "I'm not getting through to these two guys. So, I'll really turn it up to maximum temperature." And they thought, "Oh, wow. This is like working in Southeast Asia." He said, "I'm not getting through." So, he decided, "Let's try the very cool um hell realm." So, he turned the temperature right down. So, everything became ice, really cold. And these two Australians, they were just jumping up and down for joy. "Yay! Yay!" And the devil was just so amazed. "How come that these people, you know, from Fremantle, how come that they're so happy? And it's really frozen now." So, he had to go and ask them, "How come you just you enjoyed it when it was hot and you now enjoy it when it's cold?" He said, "Because we made a resolution many years ago that hell will freeze over before Fremantle won the the cup final
- Labour energy, not labour painStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monastery full of monks in north-east Thailand kept a book on how to give birth. It came from a commune of hippies who left Haight-Ashbury after the summer of love: they never…
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this is one of the books which I remember we had in our monastery so many years ago. It was about how to give birth. How when you're pregnant, how to give birth. We had this in a monastery full of monks in northeast Thailand. And people go, "What you got that in here for?" And the reason we had it in there for because it was actually a wonderful example just of how you can change the world by changing attitudes. So in this birthing book which apparently people said became like a almost like a standard text. It was you know basically practiced by a bunch of hippies who you know left you know the summer of love in San Francisco hate Ashbury and just got a little commune together did things differently and of course young people uh when people got pregnant. Number one they never called it labor pain. That was a no no. Call it labor pain and it becomes pain. They call it labor energy. Now this, you know, you think this is not much, but when for, you know, when you found out you're pregnant for seven months or 6 months or whatever, being conditioned, you know, the first couple of months, you don't know. Maybe I don't really know what I'm talking about, but you know, roughly you get the idea that um that when you call it labor energy, call it labor pain, it changes the psychology of it. And of course, they didn't just have the the um the the husband there. They had just the whole family just about. Everybody was like at a football match. And when you had a big contraction, yeah, go for it. Wow, that's a big one. Wow, that was amazing. And everyone was cheering them along. And because it was just so much like a party when they were giving birth and they never looked at pain, they their labors were incredibly short. They had a had a a a doctor, you know, a a doctor from the local town or something who was just amazed at this, you know, how it well it worked. Short, not painful, and amazing babies were born because they took away the idea of fear from the whole process.
- Laughing when you hit your headStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm travelled to ceremonies in the back of a ute under a tarpaulin stretched over a metal frame. On the pot-holed dirt roads, every bump…
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And I learned this when I was reminded of this story by one of uh our Thai followers that when I was a young monk that we used to go over the for invitations here all over the place uh in Thailand uh in the back of a of a ute, a pickup truck. And uh I did actually go once on a back of a motorbike as a monk. Never again on a motorbike. Cuz you know what happens? You can imagine these robes and a motorbike. Once they pick up any speed, the wind gets inside of them and it balloons up. And I was I always thought I was going to fly off because like a big balloon. And but fortunately I managed to hold on just so I never go on a on a motorbike with loose robes like this. But anyway, on the back of a truck, the old utes, they would have like a cover on it, a metal frame over which was draped a tarpool in. And that was a place where you'd sit in the back with all the other monks going to this or that um ceremony. And number one, it was really dusty. At least the top water would keep off any rain. And these were those days where the roads were all uh just dirt roads with lots of potholes. In fact, because there was lots of potholes that every time every time that truck, that ute hit a pothole, what would happen was the ute went down and I would go up and hit my head on the metal frame. And that really hurt, especially because I've got no padding. So you hit your head really hard on this metal again and again and again. And I just this was getting too too much. It's really hurting. And I noticed that when any of the Thai monks or lashed monks whenever they crack their head on one of these uh the metal um frame on which the tarpon was was was covered, when they hit their head, they never sort of grimaced. They never swore. They laughed. And they must have been hurting as much as I was, but they were laughing at the pain. And I thought, what's going on here? And because scientists before, so I used my science, my western sort of logic to actually think of explanations and theories why when Thai monks hit their head, they laughed. And my first theory was they must have hit their head so many times that they were brain damaged. But of course that wasn't the case cuz they were really nice monks. They're very smart. And so then I thought I couldn't understand. So what do you do? You do experiment. Know western culture do an experiment. Find out. So I resolved. So the next time I hit my head, I was going to laugh instead of swear. I'd always always swear in English because the time I couldn't understand me, I thought, but they did. But anyway, when the next time I hit my head, I laughed and I discovered an amazing theory. You should get the Nobel Prize for things like this because it's actually practical that when you laugh when you hit your head, it hurts much less. And if you don't believe me, get the person sitting next to you to hit you on the head. Better not do it here. I get in trouble with insurance. But you can see that just one's attitude towards sickness and pain changes many many things. It does actually hurt much less when you laugh.
- Paid to be shouted atStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In ancient Greece a teacher charges his students a few extra coins every time he has to shout at them for doing something stupid. One student pays for years. When he graduates…
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There was this one, this was ancient Greece and there there was a teacher and he had many many students and he teach them everything. [snorts] But every time any one of those students did something stupid and the teacher would shout at the student, the teacher would charge a few extra dollars. It's reasonable. It's logical. Shouting at someone is a lot of effort. And the know it's not the teacher's fault that the student did something wrong. The student should pay the teacher an extra five bucks or something for being so stupid that the teacher had to shout at him. So this young man, he studied with his teacher for many years. Every time he made a mistake, teacher shout at him, he'd hand have to hand over another five bucks. But when he graduated and got a job in Athens somewhere, every time his boss shouted at him at work, this young man would laugh. [laughter] The boss at him again. [laughter] And they wonder know why you keep laughing at us when you get told off. Could you do that at work when somebody shouted at you? Could you laugh? Or was your partner they shouted at you, told you off and you go? [laughter] Could you do that? He said, "Why are you laughing at it?" He said, "Well, look, when I was a student, I had to be paid when people shouted at me. Now I get it for free. That's why I think it's so funny.
- “Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy; thinking about it is the hard part”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah asks the young monks to move a mountain of leftover earth; three days of gruelling work on one meal a day. While Ajahn Chah is away the deputy says it's in the wrong…
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My teacher Ajahn Chah had just built his hall. And there was lots of earth left over. And instead of paying people or getting earth movers to move the earth, why pay money when you've got so many slaves. Like me, young monks. In those days I was fit, I was healthy, I was handsome. Not fat and old like today. But I didn't mind helping a teacher. It was like gratitude when someone had helped you so much, you just please give me something to do, I just want to help you. And so he asked us to please move this earth, all the leftover earth to put in the place around the back. Now that was not easy. It was three days of hard slog. We'd only eat one meal a day. And you really couldn't even call it a meal. It was just subsistence rations. Just sticky rice with a frog on the top. That was one of the meals. It was rotten fish curry, it stank. It was… that's what we had to eat. Because this is what the villagers ate. There was snail soup. I remember the snail soup that was just so disgusting. Because the snails are so chewy. You know, just it's really hard to break them up. You know like those rubbers you use to erase pencils that's what it was like it reminded me of. That was one of the common ones. Or the fried crickets, the bugs, the ant soup and egg soup was very common. Or buffalo afterbirth. That was vegetarian food. Think about it. It doesn't harm the animal at all. It's just extra. But anyway, really gross food. And then from nine o'clock on till about ten o'clock in the evening shoveling earth into the wheelbarrows, pushing it you know to where it's needed to go. A huge amount of three days work. And it was so hot. It was in the jungle. And there was so many mosquitoes. And it was so tiring. You didn't have time to have dinner. There wasn't any lunch or any afternoon snacks or dinner. We only had one meal a day. Wow! Even prisoners of war never had to work that hard. And I had faith. After three days it was all finished. But you can imagine how dirty you felt, how sweaty. All your robes stank and just, you know you didn't have time for a shower. As soon as you got back to your hut you just collapsed. And you woke up in the morning, alms around, have a quick meal and bound moving the earth again. Three days of really really hard work. But it was finished and when I went to bed after the third day I thought “great! Tomorrow I can have a really good wash and wash my robes and do some meditation, just relax a bit.” but that night my master Ajahn Chah, he went to visit another monastery. Just like I'm doing tomorrow. We do those things. We visit each other, help each other out. And that morning after our breakfast, the deputy monk, he made in the announcement. He said “I've been thinking of where we put that earth. It's the wrong place,” he said. We need to move it. And you know he, that deputy monk, he never pushed a wheelbarrow. Never touched it. He was one of the bosses. You know what bosses are like. They always tell you what to do but they never do anything themselves. All full of ideas but no experience. So three more days of hard work in the jungle pushing those wheelbarrows, shoveling the earth. But I still had faith. After six days it was finished. Because the deputy monk had a point, you know. Well it was almost in the wrong place. And that night, guess what happened? Ajahn Chah came back. And the following morning after breakfast he said “I told you to put it over here. Why'd you put it over there? Move it! And it was at that point I lost my faith. I never became a monk to move wheelbarrows of earth. I came to meditate, become enlightened, you know, learn the Dhamma and… that's what I was a monk for. Not as a laborer. Not as a slave. I got very angry. And you know I did say I think in the book, it's absolutely true. You did start to swear. In English thinking that you know, the Thai monks couldn't understand you. But of course they understood. The body language showed you're really really unhappy. And that I was stressed out. I was angry. For a good reason you're being exploited. You've been taken advantage of. I was so angry and upset. And that's when one of the Thai monks came up to me and he said something which I will never forget which I've shared with thousands of people. One of the great ways of overcoming stress in life. He said to me: “pushing the wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is a hard part.” you know, that was worth all of that torture. Just to learn that. Pushing the wheelbarrow is a hard part. Going to work with a terrible boss that's easy. Thinking about it is a problem. Having to do all of that job being the president of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia it's easy. Thinking about it is a hard part. And of course once I got it straight away you know that the rest of the three days went really quick. And it was fun. You know we'd have races with the other monks, you got there first. And if they beat me you know, just for a bit of revenge you know, shoveling the next bit of earth and it was oh just sorry, sorry that's of I… I didn't get it in the wheelbarrow. Got it all over your face. Shoveling over each other. Just a bit of fun and games playing around. And that was really good fun. After nine days it was finished.
- The dancing lollipop ladyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Being driven to the airport early one morning in London as children went to school, Ajahn Brahm sees a 'lollipop lady' stopping traffic with her big round sign — not walking…
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these are the people who look after the crossings Here in Australia they have flags. Over in the UK they have these big poles with this circular 'stop' sign. And I will always remember this woman maybe 55-60 year old woman English lady with a lollypop, she was dancing she was doing rap with the lollypop dancing away across the road and she made so many people happy that morning including me going to work on a Monday morning, me going for a long flight. That's all you need to do! Just add a little bit of fun to being a lollypop girl
- “Why don't you come and stay with us?” — the monk in Casuarina PrisonStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk teaching at a high-security prison describes monastery life (4 am rising, one meal, hard work, no TV, sleeping on the floor); horrified, a prisoner invites him to come and…
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And this particular story is an anecdote when one of our monks, when I was too busy doing all these other things, we used to go teaching in prisons, but another monk started teaching in prison. When he started teaching in prison, this was in Casuarina Prison, at one of the top-security jails. After a while the prisoners there said "Can you stay back a bit longer, we want to sort of talk to you, just find out about you." So he stayed back a little bit longer, they gave him a cup of tea and some chocolate now if you give a monk a cup of tea and chocolate, they're gonna stay forever, so he stayed behind for a bit of tea and chocolate. They started asking him questions about life in a Buddhist monastery in the West. What do you guys do? Have you ever wondered what we do in our monastery? So he said, "Okay, the day in the life of a monk, we get up at four o'clock in the morning." And just at that the prisoners were aghast. "Four o'clock in the morning! Even in prison, you don't have to get up at that time." And the monk he did actually make a qualification, he said, "Actually it's voluntary, it's optional, getting up at four o'clock in the morning," which is true, it's optional, you can always get up earlier, if you want to, that's the option. "And then what do you do?," and he told them, "We meditate." They said, "Can't you just watch the end of the late night movie?" He said, "No, we don't have TVs." "You don't have TVs in the monastery, we have TVs in our cells in prison, that's terrible. So what you do then, you have your breakfast?" We do have a breakfast at the monastery, we usually have just one cup of cereal in it and that's about it, or you know someone, you know has his noodles, but it's only one cup, that's all. They said, "Wow, you know in Casuarina Jail we can have bacon, we have pancakes, we can have cereal, you have everything there, whatever you want." And they said, "Why don't you do that in the monastery?" "No, no, we only have a bit of cereal and that's it." "And then what do you do in the morning?" "And then we work hard at Bodhinyana Monastery." We do these amazing chores, you know building, and even I do that, and if you go down to the retreat centre, we're doing this ramp and I was spending two days cutting the bricks, it was a huge angle grinder, really heavy work, getting myself all dusty. I like some joining in when there's any concrete work. Tell the story once with doing concrete work, when you do concrete work, even as a monk, you get it all splashed all over you. So you know just boys being boys, I'm still a boy you know, still just maybe a bit old to be a boy, but I still like getting myself all dirty. So I got all this concrete on top of me, as I was walking back to my hut to have a shower, I passed a Sri Lankan woman and she was in this really expensive sari, she was visiting the monastery. She came up to me and I'll never forget this, she said, "Uh... I've come to see the abbot Ajahn Brahm." I thought very quickly and I said, "Madam, if you go to the hall over there he'll probably be there in about fifteen minutes." That was enough time for me to go to my room, get a shower and get changed into some clean robes. So I went up to the hall, and there she was waiting, and I said, "Oh! I'm Ajahn Brahm," you know she never recognized me. That's how dirty I was. I gave her a nice talk, you know about the monastery and about Buddhism, what we're doing here and she was really impressed, so just before she left she said, "You know you've got a really good monastery, are you're a really good monk, but if you don't mind me saying this, I saw this really dirty monk when I came here and I think you should do something about that." I said, "I'll talk to him later, Ma'am". Which I did. So that's actually how hard we work, and when the prisoners heard this, again they were really surprised, 'cause yeah, in prison you have to do jobs, but they take it real easy in those jails in Australia. They said, "They'll never get us to work that hard." They said "And then you have your lunch?" Yeah, we have our lunch, many of you have been to our monastery, we eat it out of a bowl, everything goes in one bowl. Sometimes it's true you do get curry on spaghetti. No sorry, I got that wrong, you got custard on spaghetti. That's right, you ever had custard on spaghetti? Why do you say "yuck" for, you've never eaten it, but actually you're right, it is gross. Sometimes you have custard on spaghetti. I've had ice cream on curry, chocolate ice cream, yeah, that's also yucky. 'Cause you know, you put it in your bowl, and for me because I'm the senior monk I put it in the bowl myself and I give it to somebody to take up, 'cause that's their duty. By the time, they're not really careful, they just shake it all over the place, you know I put it in the right position when I start, by the time it gets up there it's all over the place, but that's life. And they were saying that even in prison, even when you go to solitary, you get a tray the custard is here, the spaghetti is over there, it's separate compartments. "Don't you have compartments in your bowl?" Have a look at our bowls, we don't have separate compartments, it goes all over the place. They said, "That's disgusting!" "So what you do in the afternoons?" He said, "We meditate." "Can't you sort of play some music, or sort of play a game of footie or something." "No, we're not allowed to play footie, we just meditate all afternoon." They said, "Don't you get bored?" "No, that's what we're supposed to do." "So I suppose you hangout for dinner?" "Dinner? We don't have dinner in our monasteries, we just eat in the morning time, there's no dinner." They said, "Well, even in prison they give you something to eat in the evening and you have snacks throughout the day, whatever you want. So what do you do in the evening then? You know, can you play cards play monopoly or something, pass the time?" He said "No, we can't do that." "Don't tell us" they said, You meditate, don't you?" "Yeah, of course we do." "Oh God, that must be terrible. Then what time do you go to bed?" And the monk said, "Bed? Bed?... we don't have beds, I sleep on the floor." They were absolutely disgusted. Even in prison they put you in that little cot with the mattress on top, not in our monastery, I sleep on the floor. Anyway, the prisoners were actually really surprised. They were really surprised, but not only surprised, they felt sorry for this monk who had been visiting them, and this is true story, one of them was so upset that this man who they got to like was living in such a hard situation, one of them blurted out, "That's terrible in your monastery, why don't you come in here and stay with us instead?" And they had a point, it is actually much more comfortable in any prison in Western Australia than in Bodhinyana Monastery, or even in Dhammasara Nun's Monastery. So why is it that people are trying to get out of jail, and they're trying to break into our monastery, to stay there, waiting lists. That got me thinking, what's the difference between our monastery and the prison? Prison is actually more comfortable, the monastery is much harsher. What's the difference? The only difference is in a monastery people want to be there. In a prison, doesn't matter how comfortable it is, people don't want to be there, that's the only difference.