Stories about bullying
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about bullying from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- “I haven't got a tail — I'm not a dog”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A parent tells Ajahn Brahm that their bullied son used a Thai teaching he'd brought back: if someone calls you a dog, look at your bottom to see if you have a tail; if not,…
Read full story
They said their son was being bullied at school, bullying is a big thing. And they said a little teaching which really helped them, a very simple teaching, was that teaching which I took back from Thailand, which means that you don't listen to other people's criticisms. It was that teaching, if somebody calls you a dog, you look at your bottom to see if you've got a tail. If you haven't got a tail, you're not a dog, it is the end of the problem. And this actually happened because these bullies, they called this kid a dog, and he would remember the story, this was a kid at school, remember the story, he looked at his bottom, "sorry I haven't got a tail, I'm not a dog". And those kids stopped bullying him after that.
- The boy who regretted rememberingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After a talk on reincarnation at the London Buddhist Vihara, an 18- or 19-year-old comes up and tells Ajahn Brahm he is one of the cases in Ian Stevenson's book on children who…
Read full story
And I remember once giving a talk at the uh the London Buddhist Vihara, a Sri Lankan temple in London. It's very close to where my mother lived. And giving a talk on reincarnation, and a boy came out to me afterwards. And he was one of those cases in that book. He said, you know, "I'm one of those 20." And had a lovely conversation with him. When he was about this time about 18 or 19 when I saw him. And he told me personally, he said, "That was the worst thing I ever did in my life, tell someone about my past memories." Because he said once it was publicized, and he was only a young boy at time, he got hell at school. As you know what happens, you know, in school if there's anything about you which is weird or strange, you know, the other boys in the school tend to tease you about it. And he got a terrible teasing from his friends at school once they found out, once it became well known that he was one of these people who could remember his past lives. And when I actually heard his pain in having admitted that and told that coming out remembering his past life, it became very clear to me that this boy never got anything out of telling people that he was reborn except a lot of suffering. And that meant a lot to me in the sense that people don't invent these memories to to gain anything. In fact, when you tell people those memories, you lose a lot. There's nothing to gain out of that, but everything to lose. And so the very fact that he had to suffer with coming out about his memories meant something to me. It meant that it gave his memories that little bit more legitimacy legitimacy cuz it was hard and difficult for him to uh let people know what had happened to him. But there he was, it's wonderful to meet a person who uh was courageous enough or you may say stupid enough to tell people about their previous lives.