Stories about cooperation
5 Buddhist wisdom stories about cooperation from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Can I play for the other side?Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In his last ever soccer match, for his Cambridge college, the other team turns up with only nine players against eleven. By half-time his side is about six-nil up, so he asks his…
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The last soccer match I ever played this is absolutely true for the college you know which I went to in Cambridge if you know soccer it's 11 aside only nine of their team turned up and we were 11 so we had two more players than they did and at halfime after 45 minutes we were about 6n up it was such a onesided game that I went to my captain and said, "Can I play on the other side for the second half to make a game of it?" He swore at me. He said, "No, we're here to win." And that just I wasn't going to play anymore because for me it was like playing for fun. It didn't matter who won.
- The ants who buried the sugar cubeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A visitor at the Serpentine monastery puts a hard sugar cube on top of an ants' nest to test them. Instead of breaking it up, the ants excavate beneath it day by day until it…
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Years and years ago, at our monastery in Serpentine, there were many ants' nests, there was this one visitor, he decided to give the ants an intelligence test. Cause you know, the ants' nest, he put a sugar cube on top of the ants' nest. The ants love the sugar. It's like one of these hard cubes, I wonder what they would do with this. Would they break it up to take it into the small holes, to take it into the centre of their nest? What would they do? And he really couldn't believe their intelligence their engineering prowess. What the ants did, they excavated under the sugar cube. So day by day, the sugar cube got lower and lower and lower and lower. When the top got below the surface, they put the earth on top again. Now it's exactly the same way, I think the Vietcong buried the American tanks, during the Vietnam war, they actually drew them underground. That was just a community of ants, who've never seen a sugar cube before, ever.
- The emperor visits the two hermitsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Mahayana tale: top-of-mountain hermit and mid-slope hermit; Chinese emperor climbs to seek counsel from both — cooperation/wisdom frame (open).
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two Hermits they were living these were monks and they were living up on the mountain they had you know the the top hermit just because he lived on the very top of the mountain and the one which lived halfway down you know because we were both Hermits they didn't want to live next to each other they're both really really good good monks and they very wise and very compassionate that when the Emperor of China was having problems you know in his country he decided to go and visit those Hermits so the emperor he went up to the the top hermit first
- The runners who stoppedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Many people have told Ajahn Brahm about a Paralympic final in which one competitor stumbled just before the line — and instead of racing on, all the others stopped, picked the…
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You remember that sort of just comes to mind the parolympics. I never actually saw this, but so many people talked to him about it in the Parolympic race when one of the competitors in the final fell over and everyone stopped to pick them up and help them along across the line all together. Just what an inspiration that was. Did I describe that correctly? Cuz I I didn't see it cuz I don't watch the TV. They said this was Olympic, Parolympics or finals of some race and the last competitors they trained for years to get to this level and they were in the final watched by millions of people throughout the world and one of the competitors stumbled and fell just a little bit before the light and instead of all the others carrying on to win, they stopped or they all stopped and picked up this person and they all cross the line together. That was inspirational.
- Why the German worked harder in AustraliaStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A society member who migrated from West Germany before reunification is told by Australian workmates that Germans have a strong economy because they work hard. No, he says — he…
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many years ago when I first came there's one of the members he just migrated from West Germany this was before unification at that time I think the West German economy was the best in the world beating Japan China United states there's a very very strong economy and he told me that when he when he came and worked here in Western Australia his work friends sort of said to him oh you Germans you got such a good economy because you really know how to work hard no that's not right I work much harder here in Australia than I ever worked in Germany and I asked him well why was your economy so strong he said because when I was working in Germany family. This was before unification. He said we would work cooperatively here in Australia. He said we work like this competing against each other in the same office in the same company. He said that was why we had to work so hard to be competitive to be productive. Sorry when you work together you have cooperation instead of competition you get far more success far more productivity and also you don't have this jealousy business