Stories about awareness
4 Buddhist wisdom stories about awareness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Even the monk got excited at the auctionStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Bidding for land for the nuns' monastery, Ajahn Brahm watches the auctioneer move from a calm description to rapid, rising calls — and finds that even he, a monk, gets swept up…
Read full story
One of the first times when I saw this, how people can play your emotions is actually when we started our nun's monastery down in Gingegannup because that was before Sister Vayama was here, and we were looking for a nice piece of land, we found this nice piece of land over in Reen Road but it was on auction. And so I went there for the auction, with - I don't know if he's here this evening - Eddy Fernando was our bidder. But when the auctioneer started the auction he was very calm, saying about this beautiful block of land, wonderful place for retreat, lovely forests and the river and then he started mentioning the figures.. And he said, I think this is worth so much, I think we should start for at least a million dollars. And straight away I thought, "oh no". And then he bids for one million, and of course no one bid, any bids for five hundred thousand, four hundred, three hundred.. Let's start two-fifty. Someone put their hand up - two-fifty. And that's when he started - two-fifty two-fifty, we've got two-seventy-five, two-seventy-five, two-seventy-five, anyone two-seventy-five! We've got two-seventy-five!! Three-hundred, three-hundred, wawawawawawa..!! [laughter]. And even I was a monk, even I started getting excited.
- No such thing as a sudden heart attackStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Cardiologist summary: heart attacks don't come out of the blue — many body signals precede the big one; people aren't listening.
Read full story
cardiologist and he said and I really took this on board he said that there was no such thing as a sudden heart attack it does not come as they say out of the blue before you have a heart attack you have many signals which the heart gives you gives you before the big one comes but you're not listening to them you're not here not aware of your body
- The ex-Marine monk who caught his fits earlyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk friend, shot in the head as a US Marine in Vietnam, has epileptic fits from the brain injury. Over a couple of years of mindfulness he learns to sense the build-up earlier…
Read full story
one of my friends who was a monk many years ago. He was in the US Marines in the Vietnam War He had because he was shot in the back of the head And had some brain damage Otherwise is a wonderful monk very kind, but he had epileptic fits because of the injury being shortened though in a head how he dealt with his epileptics have hits similar way to overcome the panic attacks Because he was aware Mindful he could actually catch those fits Earlier and earlier and earlier he could see the signs. He could be aware to see how it works because The fits never just came out of the blue they had the introduction of the little bits getting more tense more tense he could actually feel it coming It took for a couple of years before he could catch it early enough He could take another path Relax used to go to his room darken the room just lay down and just relaxed as much as he could and then after a while no more epileptic fits
- They watched the sunset on TV — the real one was at the windowAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A favourite Leunig cartoon: left half, a family watches a sunset on a nature channel; right half, an open window shows the actual sunset outside. They prefer the screen a few…
Read full story
There is a family watching the TV, that's in the left half of the cartoon they're watching a sunset, a beautiful sunset, portrayed on some nature channel on the TV, and in the right part of the cartoon is an open window, where the actual sunset is occurring. They prefer to watch it on the TV and just move a few feet and look through the window and see the real sunset happening