Stories about discipline
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about discipline from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- 'Better to die than disrobe'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Pasanno, an old friend, suffers constant stomach pain in Thailand; a Bangkok doctor finds an ulcer and says the only cure is to eat in the afternoon — forbidden for monks.…
Read full story
This monk, you won't mind me mentioning Ajahn Passano, is a very good good monk, a good old friend. And he was over in in Thailand. Eventually went over to United States and started a monastery over there. But this one day, the you know, he always had terrible tummy ache. And when he checked it out with the doctor in Bangkok or somewhere, they found out it was a stomach ulcer. And how can you cure it? And the doctor said, "Well, you know, just the only way you can cure it is probably you have to eat in the afternoon." And that's a no-no for monks. We can't eat in the afternoon. Not allowed to. So he said went to see Ajahn Chah. Said, "Look, I have to eat in the afternoon, otherwise it's not going to heal. It's just really painful." You know what Ajahn Chah said, my teacher? I don't think you get away with it these days. He said "It's better to die than disrobe." He's really tough. It's not what Ajahn Passano wanted to hear. But anyways, I wasn't allowed to. But then uh we got to later, short time later, Ajahn Passano developed the scrub typhus, you know, which all of our monks got in that monastery. Had a very high fever. And when the typhus, you know, healed itself so did the stomach ulcer. He was okay.
- I don't hit sleepy meditators — I send them to bedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An audience mention of a Japanese Soto (captioned Hai/Dogen) monastery that hits sleepy monks prompts him to disagree: prisoners who saw such a documentary said they'd kill…
Read full story
there's a Zen Monastery It's A Hai Monastery over in Japan it used to founded by this monk doen about 700 almost 800 years ago now 750 years ago and uh that was supposed to um get them um awake stop their sloth and toper I totally disagree with that I remember just when I was teaching uh some of the prisoners I showed them that documentary oh they were really upset said if if you tried that on me A J rob you'd be you'd be minc me you'd be dead don't wor you don't really need to do that I think that too harsh you know sometimes of Buddism they are too harsh like kindness is much better so if you know and many of you who've been meditating Retreats with me if somebody is that sleepy I don't hit them on the back what I do is say if you want to sleep go to bed