Stories about forest monks
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about forest monks from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Ganha pats the king cobraStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Ganha ('ajan gun how'), the forest monk, meets a king cobra — the local 'one-step snake'. He raises his hand and pats it on the head, thanking it in Lao for coming to…
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a monk called Ajahn Ganha— Many of you may know him from 'Opening the Door of Your Heart'; he's the one who patted the king cobra; the king cobra came to see him in the jungle; head up, the hood out (HISSING), right in front of him— and what did this monk do? He pat the cobra on the head; thank you so much. (LAUGHTER) Now that's a monk. (LAUGHTER) Absolutely true story, no exaggeration; he did that
- The ants left a circle of kindness around the monkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A famous Thai forest monk, waiting to give a village talk, sat by an ant mound; red ants bit him until he fled, then he forced himself back and switched to metta — may all ants…
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he found a nice tree and sat down and started meditating then he realized he hadn't been really mindful enough to to to really see where he was meditating cuz there's a big ant mound right next to him and after just a minute or two he You could feel the red ants start start crawling up his legs and as they crawled up they started biting him and they're very painful but he said I'm a monk I can enjoy this [laughter] but after about 20 or 30 bites then [clears throat] there is thousands of Then he's amazing. He said he just he didn't know just jumping up and running, but he was running. He lost his mindfulness and he was running away. And at that point, he said, "No, I am a monk. I'm a forest monk." So he turned around and went straight back to where he'd been sitting and sat down in the middle of these thousands of ants again. Could you do that? So what happened next? The reason I tell the story, he changed his meditation object to loving kindness. May all ants be happy and well. Look, you know, I've got plenty of blood there or flesh. You can take some if you want, but please leave me some [laughter] or something like that. But just real kindness. You know, you've had that sort of feelings of kindness and love towards people and sometimes they're so strong even if someone is hurting you. Just give kindness and joy and goodwill towards them. That's what he did. And then the next thing he told us in his biography, the next thing he felt that the the ants stopped biting him. The next thing you could actually feel them just walking down his body rather than up his body. It's this amazing thing to see when you give kindness like that and the last ant just left him. They went into a very blissful meditation for the hour or so, hour and a half he had. When he came out of the meditation, you know, that's when what disturbed him was the sound of the the villagers coming, you know, they had their dinner and they were coming to listen to a dharma talk from him. And what he didn't really understand in that part of Thailand when they come into the presence [clears throat] of like a monk or a nun to listen to a talk that they dance. He thought this is really weird. Hadn't seen this before. People dancing when they come into the presence of a monk. He opened his eyes more fully and he realized they weren't dancing as a cultural welcome. They were dancing because they've been bitten alive by these millions of ants. And what he said and it's I totally accept this. This is what happened around him. There was a circle about maybe a meter in diameter. There was no ants at all. And then there was millions of ants all around him like protecting him