Stories about disaster
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about disaster from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- The 1991 bushfire and the hut that 'should not be here'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On 31 January 1991, at 47–48°C, a crown fire sweeps through Bodhinyana; eucalypts explode one after another and the monks evacuate, sure the monastery he worked years to build…
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it's an anniversary tomorrow, January 31st, 1991, when the temperature of Bodhinyana Monastery reached about 47, 48 degrees. And that was before the fire came. It was a huge bushfire that day. Crown fire came right through our monastery. And there you were. This monastery which I spent how many years about, so many years building up and when you have one of these bushfires, I don't know, this was hotter than the Toodjay fire which was earlier on. This was a huge fire. And when you're actually in these fires, it's amazing to see just the power of nature. Because these eucalypt trees, when it gets that hot, the eucalypt oil evaporates and it forms this mist around the tree, mixed in with oxygen. It's like a bomb waiting to go off. And this is what happens. Just know when an ember comes into that explosive mixture. The whole tree explodes. It was like explosions. This whole big tree would burst. It wouldn't be fire coming from the top or the bottom. It'd be like this ball of flame around the whole tree, all in one second, this huge noise like a bomb. Tree after tree after tree. We had to evacuate. There was no choice. Evacuate for our lives. And when we evacuated, I looked back upon that monastery, which I'd worked so hard to build up, and you thought, nothing can survive. None of those buildings. They were right in the middle of these trees. They'd all be burned to ashes. And when I left, I remember just going to the bottom of the hill, and from the southwest highway looking up and seeing the whole hillside explode in flames, one after the other. The other monk who was with me, he tried to get up, and he was arguing with the policeman, blocking Kingsbury Drive, and saying, that's my monastery up there. I want to get up. He said, you can't. I want to get up. I want, you can't. And then a few explosions happened, and the policeman said, do you want to go up? He said, no. That was true. So you left it there. And I remember that night, sleeping on the shearer's shed in a farm close by, just thinking, all that hard work. And those of you there at the time just know how much hard work which I put into that monastery, personally building it. All gone. And actually I slept soundly, because I thought, Wonderful I'd given up so much time. What a wonderful thing I'd achieved. And it didn't matter that there was going to be a monastery there the following day. What was most important to me was that I'd put all that energy and effort into it, and so much love and care. That was my success. Not the fact there was a monastery there at the end of the day. The fact that I put so much care and effort and energy into what I did. And I was so happy with that. I slept well. And of course those of you who know the story, the following morning you got up there, and it was all remaining. There was a caravan which was burned, but all those huts, those buildings which you see there, were totally survived. And even though it was a far more intense bushfire than you saw it at Toodyay. Even I remember just one of the, the head of the bushfire, they didn't call it FISA in those days, the head of the bushfire brigade. He had to come for the investigation, and I took him around. I remember him seeing one of the huts, and I'll never forget the words he said. He looked underneath it and around it, examined it totally, and then he turned to me and said, Brahm, this should not be here.
- The log that was a crocodileStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A Sri Lankan man fed the fish in a lagoon with a slice of bread every morning on his way to work, and when a crocodile appeared he fed it a slice too, every day. One morning the…
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There was a uh a Sri Lankan man who would go every morning to a little lagoon on his way to work with a couple of slices of bread to feed the fish. Then one day a crocodile came. And so he fed the crocodile a slice of bread, too. And this crocodile just came every day from that time on to get a slice of bread from this guy. I don't crocodile alligator, might get that one wrong. But anyway, he went there one morning to feed the fish and this crocodile, and that was when the big wave came. And he got swept out to sea. And he said he tried to hang on to to a chair or something which was floating, but the current was so strong it dragged him the chair away from him. The next thing he saw was a log of wood. He grabbed onto that and he could hold onto it. And he was so incredibly confused. It's a true story. They didn't It took him a while to realize all the other stuff was being swept out to sea, but the log of wood was going the opposite direction to the shore. And it got him so close to the shore he could jump off the log of wood and grab onto the bank and escape with his life. Then he looked at that log of wood. It wasn't a log of wood. It was this crocodile that saved him. Or it could be, for those of you who are cynical, the crocodile realized if that man dies, there'll be no more bread.