Stories about emotions
7 Buddhist wisdom stories about emotions from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Cough straight awayAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile: if you feel like coughing while meditating, cough straight away. Suppress it, and when the cough finally comes it's like a volcano going off and disturbs everybody. So…
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The simile which I've often given, if anyone here is meditating, if you feel like coughing, please cough straight away, because if you don't cough straight away, and you suppress it, when you do cough it's like a volcano going off, and you just disturb everybody.
- Even the monk got excited at the auctionStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Bidding for land for the nuns' monastery, Ajahn Brahm watches the auctioneer move from a calm description to rapid, rising calls — and finds that even he, a monk, gets swept up…
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One of the first times when I saw this, how people can play your emotions is actually when we started our nun's monastery down in Gingegannup because that was before Sister Vayama was here, and we were looking for a nice piece of land, we found this nice piece of land over in Reen Road but it was on auction. And so I went there for the auction, with - I don't know if he's here this evening - Eddy Fernando was our bidder. But when the auctioneer started the auction he was very calm, saying about this beautiful block of land, wonderful place for retreat, lovely forests and the river and then he started mentioning the figures.. And he said, I think this is worth so much, I think we should start for at least a million dollars. And straight away I thought, "oh no". And then he bids for one million, and of course no one bid, any bids for five hundred thousand, four hundred, three hundred.. Let's start two-fifty. Someone put their hand up - two-fifty. And that's when he started - two-fifty two-fifty, we've got two-seventy-five, two-seventy-five, two-seventy-five, anyone two-seventy-five! We've got two-seventy-five!! Three-hundred, three-hundred, wawawawawawa..!! [laughter]. And even I was a monk, even I started getting excited.
- 'It's nice to cry'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A woman who comes to the Buddhist Society told Ajahn Brahm about her mother, who went every week to Chinese tear-jerkers in which boy meets girl but never gets her — the family…
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There is a lady who comes here, she's not here this evening, thank goodness [audience laughter], but she once told me that her mother would always love going to see these weepy movies, these Chinese movies and she described them to me. Apparently the Chinese movies, there's enough people here from Malaysia, Singapore here, Hong Kong that you know what I'm talking about -- boy meets girl, but boy never gets girl! Either the family or the Imperial Army or some other tragedy gets in the way [audience laughing] and in the end, boy and girl, are killed or separated. And they know that's going to happen! Every movie is the same. It's always a sad ending. So her mother would come back from the weekly trip to the movies, with red eyes, she'd been crying all the way through, all the way home, and she asked, "What the heck you do that for?" "Ah, 'cause it's nice to cry. It's so sad and so enjoyable to feel sad.
- Men don't cry in AustraliaStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Aussie retreatant cries in meditation; last cry was at 11–12 when his father said men don't cry in Australia.
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fellow who came on one of my retreats, an Aussie guy. He started crying in while he was meditating. He said, "What's going on here?" And you know what I told him? I said, "When was the last time you had a cry?" And he said, "When I was about, I think about 11 or 12 or something." And my father said, "Men don't cry in Australia
- Plant more flowersAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile for 'repressed' emotions: your garden has weeds and flowers. Weeding isn't repression. But better than pulling the weeds, plant more flowers and water them; soon the…
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You have a garden at home. You have weeds and you have flowers. Should you actually just maybe cultivate the flowers to acknowledge them, to emit them, to not suppress them, not repress them, not to repress the the weeds in your garden. That's a stupid thing to do. If you got gardens, there's weeds in there. Just make sure they don't sort of grow any further. That's not called repression. That's called, I suppose, weeding, cultivating a garden. But one of the best ways instead of like pulling the weeds out, plant more flowers and water the flowers. Water the bushes and then the flowers grow and soon the flowers and the bushes grow so great that they choke the the weeds off.
- The nail that didn't hurt until someone said soStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On alms round in Thailand Ajahn Brahm steps on a nail that goes a couple of inches into his foot. It doesn't hurt — until the monk with him says, “Oh, that's terrible.” Then it…
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stepping on a nail - it went about two inches into my foot! It's a long way, a big 4 inch nail, it went right inside my foot! It didn't hurt at all! until somebody said "Wow that's terrible!!" and as soon as they said that it started to hurt
- Twenty minutes to cry in a Bangkok templeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A Western visitor interested in Buddhism sees a young woman crying her eyes out on a bench in a busy Bangkok temple. Unsure of the culture, he leaves her be; twenty minutes…
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I remember a man came and told to me once he was visiting Bangkok he was very interested in Buddhism It's very hard to find someone who could teach him what Buddhism really meant. But he found some of his answers in an experience when he went to visit a Buddhist temple in the city and those of you who have been to Bangkok, you know how busy and noisy it can be. He was visiting a temple he noticed a girl siting on one of the benches in the temple crying her eyes out. she was distraught about something but not really knowing the culture of Thailand, he thought I don't think I should intervene, but he felt like he was concerned about this woman who was obviously suffering quite intensely. So went off to visit the temple inside and when he came out, may be 20 minutes afterwards he noticed this woman has stopped crying was about to get up and leave. He couldn't help himself but just go and ask her Is there anything wrong? Is there anything I can do? and she could speak English And she replied 'no I am fine now' What happened was 'I had lost the keys to my car' and I came into the temple. All I needed was a quiet place just to cry for 20 minutes and now I am fine. Thank you very much