Stories about Dhamma
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about Dhamma from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Mango orchard planted by the BuddhaAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: First-year monk puzzled — no mango trees at Wat Pah Pong. Ajahn Chah: the monastery is a mango orchard planted by the Buddha himself, trees full of ripe sweet mangoes. Brahm…
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Wat Pah Pong was a mango orchard." I remember this simile the first year when I became a monk and stayed with him. I didn't see any mango trees in Wat Pah Pong in those days. I said, "What is wrong? There's no mango trees in Ajahn Chah's monastery." And he said, "This is a metaphor. There are so many mango trees in Ajahn Chah's monastery and they've all been planted by the Buddha himself. This is getting weird. Cuz the Buddha actually never visited Thailand. And would the Buddha actually go to this this forest in the northeast of Thailand and not other places? So anyway, he carried on. It was planted by the Buddha. And now all of those mango trees which the Buddha planted and now full of ripe sweet mangoes. And I got interested because I don't know about you, but I love the mangoes in the northeast of Thailand. They were really tasty. And there was something which you could eat when the only alternative was to eat things like frogs. Honestly. That was often part of the meal for the day. One meal of the day, frogs and sticky rice. But in the mango season, you had these beautiful delicious mangoes. So anyway, when I heard there were mangoes in Wat Pah Pong planted by the Buddha according to Ajahn Chah's statement, I thought I'd like to try some of those. And then they were delicious. But then I realized what Ajahn Chah actually was saying. What he was saying was the mangoes, they represent the wisdom of the Buddha
- The silent German monk who finally gave a talkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In Sri Lanka with Bhikkhu Bodhi: a German monk who never gives talks is visited; an hour later Brahm emerges calling it the best Dhamma talk he had ever heard — better than Ajahn…
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this monk would He was another German monk. He would never give a talk to anybody. And Bhikkhu Bodhi said, "Just go in there and pay respects." It took an hour before I came out. [laughter] And he sat me down and gave me a nice Dhamma talk. And at that time, I said that was the best Dhamma talk I'd ever heard. Even beat Ajahn Chah's teachings