Stories about free will
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about free will from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Singing the anthem of his own free willStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a Cambridge psychical research society demonstration, a hypnotist puts a student in trance and tells him that when the hypnotist touches his right earlobe he'll stand and sing…
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this was the the time in Cambridge psychic research Society every year we get a hypnotist to come up to teach us a uh a little bit about hypnotism and being students everybody was willing to give it a try I went up there but I was not a good hypnotic subject at the time and there's always a few of the students were really really easy to hypnotize and they do make them do silly things which you know being you know undergraduates 18 19 years of age was great entertainment but what they did to this one poor student put him totally in in hypnotic trance and after he was in trance the hypnotist said when I touch my right earlobe you'll get up and sing the British national anthem in full loud voice and then he said I'm going to take you out of Trance now but you remember that instruction and so he took him out of the trance and he went back to sit in his seat and we were waiting to see what would happen of course eventually the hypnotist uh uh touch his right earlobe and this young man in the middle of a just like you know of 300 students like 300 of you you imagine you just suddenly get up and sing the Australian national anthem in four what an idiotic thing that would be to do but this guy did it he sang the British national anthem beginning to end in a loud voice even all the students were were howling with laughter you know it was the most funniest thing I'd seen and when he finished he sat down and we'd all sort of settled down as well this fellow was not embarrassed at all and so the hypnotist asked him he said why did you decide to sing the British national anthem and this student he gave a logical reason and that was when I realized that that student he had assumed he had sung that Anthem out of his own free will there's no way that he could distinguish between what was hypnotic suggestion what we all seen he was conditioned to do that and what he took to be free will it wasn't free will that was implanted into him by the hypnotist even though it's the most ridiculous thing to do
- The irresistible tobaccoStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At Cambridge, a TV advert claims the aroma of St Bruno pipe tobacco is irresistible to women: an ordinary middle-aged man lights his pipe and gorgeous shop assistants leap over…
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or like the famous one which I got sucked into when I was of all places at Cambridge University okay I'm supposed to be intelligent I'm not I'm stupid because this was for St Bruno tobacco advertising I always remember this one cuz the advert was on the TV that when you the aroma this was before we knew that sort of no tobacco was causes cancer the aroma of some Bruno tobacco was irresistible to the opposite sex and it was a crazy advertisement this ordinary looking guy you know not particularly big or strong or handsome this ordinary looking middle-aged guy was walking down the street and he took out a pipe and put this tuno tobacco in and lit it and as soon as he lit it he went past his like news agent shop and you know actually real news agent you don't get these drop drop dead gorgeous models working in it but there was one in this street absolutely gorgeous and as soon as she smelled the aroma she was totally Enchanted she jumped over the counter following this guy wining to do his every command then he went past another shop this gorgeous red head and then another shop after about 1 minute had his whole line of beautiful women following him some Bruno tobacco irr resistable now who would believe that you know who would actually take it seriously who would actually go out the next day and buy a pipe and some some Bruno tobacco I did and I knit it walked down the street expecting all these beautiful women to jump over the couch and follow me the only thing which fed me was a dog but I felt so stupid afterwards How could an intelligent guy supposed to be intelligent guy get sucked in like that