Stories about ceremony
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about ceremony from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Prisoners smiled back at the circumambulationStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a Thai-community prison-temple opening ceremony, during circumambulation he catches two prisoners' eyes with a big smile — they smile back.
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there was a couple of prisoners. I saw them as I was going around out of the corner of my eye and they looked at me and saw my big smile
- The Buddhist fly went round three timesStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Teaching on camera about leaving blowflies alone, one lands on his nose and circles the mouth three times — a circumambulation, like around a Bodhi tree or stupa (and once even…
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This fly landed on my nose. It didn't go up my nose. It went around. And I got the understanding that this part of your mouth on the the edges is much more sensitive than underneath or on top. So once it got past this part, I was okay. But then it got it started to approach the corner again. Oh my goodness, am I going to make this? And it went round. So I was very mindful of it cuz I couldn't ignore it. And then it went round again. I wonder what it was up to. Why does it want to go around twice? It's already experienced that, explored that. And then it went around a third time. And that's when I understood that was a Buddhist fly. It was in a Buddhist center. Of course, it was a Buddhist fly. And if ever you come to any of our ceremonies, we always do what we call a circumambulation. If you have a bodhi tree out there on ways we went around three times. You see that often a stuper a bodhi tree or anything you always walk around three times. Even once I remember when Ajancha was alive even I saw I think they must have got into trouble with this. One of the helicopters from the army base close by. They came over the temple. They went around once, round twice, around three times before flying off. That's how you pay respect and waste a lot of fuel. So, I'm glad the aircraft don't do that. I think that's why sometimes aircraft crash. Maybe they're doing circumambulations. I don't know. But I don't want to try it. I say that because I'm flying out tomorrow morning. Please. No. Singapore. No, no circumambulations as you fly over Thailand or whatever. Otherwise, I'm dead. But anyway, that's how the fly would circumambulate around my mouth