Stories about chanting
5 Buddhist wisdom stories about chanting from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Chanting for a dying mother in SingaporeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In Singapore a woman asks Ajahn Brahm to chant for her mother, just home from hospital and expected to die soon. After the chanting the old lady gets out of bed and starts…
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I did some chanting for them the lady asked me to come even I was supposed to go to a funeral for somebody else say can you please child from my mom she's just come home from hospital and you know I think now may be the last time maybe looks like she's gonna die soon so can I come chant for her so I went to chant for this lady you know I've known a long time and apparently after chanting she got out of bed and started walking around another miracle that's not a miracle is uncertainty
- Funeral chants at a weddingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Too tired, Ajahn Brahm starts the chanting for funerals instead of a wedding blessing — and once you start you can't stop. He never tells them; they're still happily married. The…
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I was doing marriage chants for somebody and I got it wrong because I was too tired. I gave the chanting for funerals instead of marriage. True. And once you start you can't stop. So I gave the chant. And I never told them I they're still happily married.
- The bear attack and the sapling in her headStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A nun, before ordaining, is meditating outside a Himalayan cave when a bear clamps its jaws on her head; she chants, and the bear lets go. She felt no pain — the worst part was…
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one of the nuns i think i forget where she is now that you know she came to visit once and she told the story before she was a monk and none other that she was trekking in himalayas with her a boyfriend and they just rested a nice little place to rest in front of a cave and she arrested she made it started meditating in front of the cave and her boyfriend meditated on top of the cave and then the bear came out and you know these bears they just attack you they said this bear attacked her and says put his really big bear his uh jaws on her head trying to crush her skull i mean that was just really serious stuff and then she remembered some of her buddhist chanting and started doing chanting because you know what else to do screaming for her boyfriend to help you know she'd learn from her past i was not going to help at all so anyway she started doing some chanting another bear for some reason or another just opened its uh jaws and ran away so she was actually saved of course she was bleeding heavily and then they took her to the nearest village to get some medical attention but i remember asking her did it hurt having the bear you know almost crushed your head and she said no it didn't feel any pain at all the worst part of the experience was the bear's bad breath because bears don't brush their teeth after they he anything it was disgusting she said and so she recovered but also afterwards that she had a headache for years and so after a while you know she went to the doctor and said where's his headache coming from never had a headache there before so they gave her not the cat scan of last week i mean a real ct scan of her brain and this is no exaggeration what they found in there there was a small tree sapling growing in her brain what had happened is when the bear sort of tried to crush her head with his teeth one of the teeth had a little seedling in from where the bear was eating and it actually implanted the seedling in her bed in her head there's only a small seedling but they could see that that was a reason for a headache very simple operation to you know keyhole surgery and took the the seeding out and she was fine afterwards so that's one of the dangers of being attacked by bears they implant trees
- The chanting worked too wellStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his strongest — and the man goes into remission. The family scold him: the funeral was…
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But this was the story of when I got called to go to Royal Perth Hospital, by a family of this Chinese fellow who was passing away. They said ‘you've got to come quick, he's really really sick, he's in the ICU, maybe only an hour or two to go’. So I rushed into the hospital, got up to the ICU, saw the family, just said ‘hello, I’ve arrived, I’ll see what I can do’. Went into the ICU, stood by the bed of this guy who was totally unconscious, obviously close to death. And I really gave full power chanting. Now this doesn't always work, but that day I was really on song. You know, that’s just like people playing football or tennis, sometimes you just ‘crack!’ - the ball always goes in. And this was one of those days I was just really on my game. And I chanted and chanted and chanted… He came out of coma. It was like a miracle. And it doesn't always happen, very rarely actually, but this time it actually did. He came out of comma, the daughters were amazed, he was gonna survive now. So when I went out, feeling all good about myself, and then went out to see the family, and said ‘oh well, I really did it, he came out of the coma, he's probably gonna live now'. And that's when the S.H.I.T hit the fan. Because these were the family who'd come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China. They stopped all their work, they got these expensive flights, a moment's notice; they came over to be with their patriarch for the last few hours of his life, they had already arranged the funeral service. [Laughter] Now they're gonna have to stop it and cancel it and they say ‘you have cost us a lot of money, Ajahn Brahm’. He's gonna die again, maybe in another six months, he comes back again and dies properly, but this time - no. [laughter] So they were not happy with me at all. All that way - stopping.. [laughter] I got no donations for the monastery, not even for the cost of the petrol in the car [laughter]. I never heard from them again. [laughter] So that was my mistake. What would you do, when you make mistakes like that, you learn. So now, when I go to the hospital, [laughter] I ask first of all, ‘what type of chanting do you want?' “Get-better” chant, or “die-peacefully
- The ICU patient everyone had given up onStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm is called to chant for a woman in ICU at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital with severe flu — septic, bloated, the nurses giving her little chance — hoping at least to…
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there was this one lady I went to see once at the ICU at Charlie gardeners she was in the ICU she moon I was one of these cases with a flu and no really really bad cases septic all over bloated no honor lasts and a few breaths can you please come in and do some science that isn't charging for this lady and couple weeks ago she looked toward intents and purposes a goner you know the nurses said no I'm not much chance for this lady but you know a bit of chanting a bit of presence of a good mug a bit of spiritual uplift you know would give her a good death couple weeks later got a phone call from her husband can you come round to the house and she was perfectly well total recovery