Stories about busyness
4 Buddhist wisdom stories about busyness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- A Sunday in Singapore that 'Amnesty would call torture'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm recounts a Singapore Sunday from 6:15 a.m. meditation through a 'breakfast banquet', talks, counselling over lunch, a five-hour seminar and an evening launch, ending…
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Again just being in Singapore last Sunday -- there's couple of people here from Singapore, you know this is true -- started off my Sunday morning at 6:15 in the Canning Fort Park teaching meditation. It was only supposed to be a short meditation. But you know what it's like afterwards, people start asking you questions and taking photographs. I had to rush for the morning..so-called breakfast. It was not a breakfast, it was morning banquet. People saying "Please eat this, please eat that, because I made this specially for you Ajahn Brahm." [laughter] And now you may always see I'm a fat monk. It is not my fault. [laughter] I get pressured, forced, cajoled. And if you don't believe me, you just come and follow me for one day and see what happens. So I had to eat this big breakfast and then talk to people. And then as soon as that was finished, had to go off to this morning service at the Buddhist Fellowship, which was only supposed to be a talk for an hour but went on and on and on with questions and stuff. And then we were supposed to have some lunch. But on the lunch, people come up and ask you to sign a book and ask some questions because they have some really big problems in life. So you give them free counseling. You're trying to put a spoon of food in one mouth and counsel them about their marital problems in the other. It is really working. And after that was finished, then I had to sort of rush off to a seminar they'd organized for four hours of giving talks and asking questions. And of course it wasn't four hours, it lasted for five or six, finished about eight o'clock. And after that, I had to go to this golf club where they were having a sort of a launch of an education program which I had to give another talk; didn't get back to bed till about quarter to midnight. And if anyone looked at that schedule, you'd call that torture. Amnesty International will probably take the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore to court for that.. [laughter] human rights abuse; war crimes. But of course I enjoyed every minute of it.
- “I wish I could do that”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm hates braving the noisy shopping centre to buy flight tickets. Once the monk accompanying him simply sits down, closes his eyes and meditates — and the travel agent…
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And sometimes I remember going into that shop once with another monk and the other monk who was accompanying me just sat down on a chair, closed his eyes and started meditating. And the person behind the counter stopped serving me. Hello to him. And she said, "I wish I could do that." And she really meant it.
- The big rocks go in firstStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A business-school professor fills a jar with large stones and asks if it's full; the students say yes. He adds gravel, shaking it into the gaps; then sand; then water. 'What is…
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This a professor came into his lecture hall. This was at uh a business school. And he had a jug and he asked he took out some from his briefcase took out a bag of stones and one by one put the stones into this jug until he could get no more stones inside the jug. And he asked his students, "Is the jug full?" Said, "Yeah, of course. You can't get any more stones in. He smiled and from his briefcase he picked out a bag of gravel, smaller stones. And one by one he put those into the jar, shook the jar, and many of those smaller stones found their way in the spaces between the big rocks and the smaller rocks. Is it full? No, they said they were on to him by now. So from his bag, he picked out his briefcase. He got a bag of fine sand, sprinkled the fine sand onto the rocks and gravel, shook the jar until much of the sand found its way in the spaces between the rocks and the gravel. "Is it full yet?" he asked the class. He had nothing more in his briefcase and said, "No, you'll probably find some other thing to put in there. He got the water jar and poured the water into that big jar. So that much of the water found its way between the rocks, the s the gravel and the sand. And he didn't want to try and find any other thing to put in that jar. He said, "Now what is the meaning of this lesson?" Modern times. Okay. Business school. One smart ass kid put their hand up and said, "It shows us, sir, no matter how busy we are, we can always fit something more in." Have you ever heard your bosses saying that? No, said the professor. What it shows us, if you want to put the big rocks in, the precious stones, you have to put them in first. Otherwise, you'll never get them in. You can fit the other stuff in afterwards, but the important things in life, you have to put in first priority.
- Three thousand Singapore executives heard the gapsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In a Singapore hall of about 3,000 busy executives who said they could not meditate, he asked them to notice the gaps between his words — and in those spaces nothing was…
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First time I did this was in Singapore in a big hall about 3,000 people and people said, "Oh, we can't meditate. We got too busy minds. Always these are executives, business people. I mean, it's very tough in Singapore to get by and to make a dollar and to keep the dollar and whatever else they're trying to find and keep. So, we can't meditate. It's waste of time. Oo. Oh, [laughter] there's another thing which there's always noise around or is there? Can you hear the space between the noises? That's amazing. After a while, you find that so delightful. And that's actually in this little exercise I did for these Singaporeans, 3,000 of them. Simple. Just ask them to please be aware when I'm speaking. You always, you know, listen to what I say, but also there's a reaction to what I say. Sometimes I say something stupid. Oh yeah, I've heard that one before. Oh yeah, that's not very smart. Oh, I don't agree with that. You have a reaction in your mind. But now, what is the reaction in your mind as I'm speaking now? Because you'll start to notice many gaps between my words. In those spaces, what was happening inside? Nothing was happening. And it felt so peaceful. It felt profound. And that was the first time many of those 3,000 they were business people. First time they experienced some silence, stillness, peace. There it was again. So simple, isn't it? Now see if you can remain still for half an hour. If you notice it beauty and his joy, his good qualities is so easy to stay there. You don't need to give it a name. You don't need to try and capture it. Peace is very shy. If you mention her name, she runs away