Stories about counselling
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about counselling from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Jagaro keeps eatingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A distraught Thai woman bursts into the monks' meal crying that her friend has shot herself; Ajahn Jagaro calmly keeps eating for a minute or two until she quietens, then puts…
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One of the first times I saw this and it was very impressive was the former abbot and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia Ajahn Jagaro. I was with him when he was a monk just learning his trade in Thailand. Because we do learn a trade - this is a training which we go through. And we were having our morning meal when a Thai lady ran into our dining hall. She ran in, and she's obviously very upset, because they don't usually do this - interfering in a monk's meal. And she was saying something in Thai, and I actually caught it after a while, she said "Suchin is dead! Suchin is dead! She shot herself! She's committed suicide!". And I got really quite excited too because I knew that lady, she had cancer, we've been going to see her, talking to her, counselling her. She was a close disciple of the monastery. And that morning she had shot herself, and this was her best friend who found her body. She came in to the monastery just straight away, completely distraught having found her best friend committed suicide. You can understand what she felt like. And I understood that, and I looked to Ajahn Jagaro who was the head monk at that time to see what he would do. He understood what she'd said and he put his head down and carried on eating. And this lady - "She shot herself! She killed herself!" - and the monk just carried on eating as if nothing had happened. And after about one or two minutes she stopped moving her arms up and down, she stopped shouting, and at that point Ajahn Jagaro put down his spoon, put aside his bowl, and said "what happened?" I thought it was a beautiful piece of psychological calming a person's emotions down. Because he was not responding with anxiety to her great distress, he was just calming her down just by his actions and by his softness, she too calmed down in the space of one or two minutes. It was the most brilliant counselling I'd seen for years.
- Total listening — the counsellor threw away her learningStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Wealthy client exhausted usual therapies; counsellor at a Buddhist conference describes going totally quiet, discarding training static, listening — then words come unbidden when…
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counseling from this woman this woman said in her presentation that she knew the background she knew that know all the usual ways of dealing with this problem wouldn't work because they had already been tried so she decided to do this total listening when the woman came in the room this is her client the counselor just went very peaceful very quiet no thoughts throw away all of the learning which you've had before cuz that just creates more a static between the ears and she listened to this person for a few minutes as she described what was happening to her and then when it was a turn for the counsel to speak she said the words came out of her mouth