Stories about healing
24 Buddhist wisdom stories about healing from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- A dog called ChemoStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A doctor friend in Melbourne has a big Labrador she named 'Chemo'. She was training it to visit hospital wards, because stroking a gentle animal helps very sick people recover —…
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there's one of my friends over in Melbourne, now that's Priya Mendes [?] and she’s got this big dog and it was Labrador wasn’t it, and when I saw it, I said “what's its name” and she gave it the name, she's a doctor, she gave it the name “Chemo”. Chemo the dog, that's a really weird name, why do you name it Chemo? She said “because I'm training this dog to be one of these dogs who goes into wards with people who are very, very sick, because we all know that if you take a little dog or a cat or a rabbit into a ward where people are very sick, just being able to pet that dog, to stroke it, have this beautiful soft animal in there, the compassion which a small animal or even a big animal generates amongst human beings has a very strong positive effect on people's recovery. They actually get better. Having a beautiful dog to play with in the ward, it makes you sort of, gets up all your, what's it called, the, not serotonin, all these endomorphines, all this beautiful health things in your body, you all know better than I do... but you know it really works. So that's why she called her dog Chemo because it was short for chemotherapy, that was a little joke, she's a good student of mine, has got a stupid sense of humor just like me. [laughter] So Chemo, Chemo the dog, and of course that dog went into so many wards in its life, healing people, helping people, that dog must have made huge amounts of good karma just by generating compassion in other beings.
- Adelaide anxiety — stroke it kindlyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A bed-bound Adelaide University student with health anxiety learns the bodily feel of her attacks; Brahm has her massage the tension with kindness. Anxiety eases; she returns to…
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this lady over at Adelaide University so many years ago now I asked her how do you feel? I don't mean inside but on your body when you have an anxious anxiety attack. And she felt this tension in her chest. And over many weeks cuz she was bedbound said, "Now please find out how it really feels and tell me all about it. How it feels, where it feels, whether it grows, expands, she had to be so aware of it, she learned from it. And then once she learned what anxiety was for her and how it felt a manifestation on her body, I told her to get your hand and give it kindness, just to stroke your own body, to massage it as kindly as you possibly can. And that's when I would call her every few days. I was in Perth, she was in Adelaide. How does it feel? He said, "Oh, after I massaged it, the physical feeling went away." As it does, and what about the anxiety that went to It's a beautiful story, real story. And she was out of bed soon, back to university. I got her life back. I remember her. The nice parts of the story, they always have those beautiful endings. that then she called me again. She moved back to to Perth and she asked me said please I jump can you come to UWA I'm getting married there I want you to get the blessing married with kids having a wonderful time overcome her anxiety that way from being bed bound
- Ajahn Chah sits in the centre of the feverStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Malaria was an occupational hazard for jungle monks, and Ajahn Chah suffered it for years. During one intense attack, instead of lying in bed worrying, he sat up and meditated…
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And I know Ajahn Chah's story, my teacher, being a forest monk living in the jungles he had malaria for many years it was for those monks an occupational hazard just like these days, for current monks having tummy aches is an occupational hazard simply because as I told you I don't own my stomach you put whatever you want into it, and sometimes my stomach says 'no' (Ajahn laughs) But nevertheless you get to peace with that. His occupational hazard was malaria for many years I remember him telling me how he overcame his malaria once and for all having a very intense attack of the fever and instead of just laying in bed, sitting up meditating with it instead of running away from the thing or complaining about it, worrying about it what most people do when you got a problem, a disease or a tumor or whatever you think about it too much it creates more problems by the way react to them Instead he sat with it, he said he sat right in the centre of his fever quietly silently had peace with it. And it's a very hard thing to do but it's a wonderful thing to train yourself to be able to do. To be able to make peace with pain or with the fever, or with difficulty to make absolute peace with it so you don't even think you are just there at one with what you are experiencing not making any inner speech with it. he said as he was just with that he sort of felt like he was in the centre of a raging forest fire. but in the centre it was cool. but he could perceive all around him was a fire getting hotter and hotter and hotter which was his fever increasing in intensity and he said at one point the fever got so hot it burst and everything was cool. He never got malaria ever again.
- Anita Moorjani: “I'm cured”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In Hong Kong, Anita Moorjani, riddled with cancers and expected to die, dies on the operating table. She sees and hears everything said (the doctors confirm it), floats out of…
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her experience while she was in hong kong she was uh indian but working in hong kong and brian joseph um walker was the her gp but she had so many cancers inside of her and all of those cancers which she had were literally killing her she had many operations and this operation was you know they think last chance for her they thought she was going to go and she did die on the operating table and when she died on the operating table she obviously came back again and then she told the story what it was like being first of all being able to see and hear everything which was being said the doctors confirmed it how the heck do you know that you were unconscious at the time and not only being able to see and hear everything but then floating out of her body and to this big beautiful light and those of you who heard me teach the deep meditation on retreats we call those nimiters in meditation beautiful lights what it is is a manifestation of your mind that's one thing which i disagreed with her on not sort of god who might feel like that but it's actually your own mind and when it's freed from the five senses it's very powerful and extremely blissful like being in the middle of pure love or pure bliss those meditation experiences which i said earlier they're such powerful happiness and and joys literally is blissing now very deeply and then when she came out afterwards she came out afterwards she didn't know how long she was in there she came with what we called in buddhism insight understanding but her main concern at the time obviously was her health her sicknesses her cancers and when she came out and became conscious again to the surprise of the doctors and they thought she would have died and then the first thing she said to the doctors is i'm cured and the doctors thought she was just being hallucinating because you know she had big tumours inside of her what do you mean you're cured and that's when afterwards she mentioned because i've understood the cause of my cancers and the cause of the cancers was the emotional stress of trying to live up to other people's expectations all the time like you your partner in life your children's expectation of you as a mother as a father as a grandparent your parents expectations of you your boss's ex expectations of you and more powerful your own expectations of you what do you think you should be doing how do you really feel that inner stress inside trying to live up to some standard and you don't know where those standards are from and when she saw that she was success a very successful woman when she saw that that was what was causing the stress which manifested in the tumors in her body she understood that was the reason why she had the cancer now she saw that and could understand the main cause of the cancers then she said i'm not going to try and live up to other people's expectations anymore i'm going to relax and just be me and you know that as soon as you if any of you ever do that you find out the you you end up being is much much much better than the you that you try to be all of that force you're not working well enough you're not good enough you're not trying hard enough you're not successful enough you could do more you could do better that is a terrible burden on your body which means that you work too hard injury don't work much at all you're still just trying too hard you still have that stress inside of your body and mind and she said that was what's causing my cancer
- Bent like an old farmer — healed with the cobraStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Laying concrete for a Bodhinyana wall that was going off fast, he kept bending to smooth it and afterwards could not straighten — bent for two or three months like an old farmer.…
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i was busy just laying concrete for the wall that body down the monastery the concrete was going off really fast i had to keep bending over to smooth out the concrete and afterwards i couldn't straighten my back i really injured it about two or three months i was bent over like an old person like an old farmer's it took me a long time to heal that but i healed it just you know through the yoga position the the the the corpse no that crops the cobra yeah and it was brilliant and i could really feel my back and stretch it just the right amount i never had any problem with my back ever since
- '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.…
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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.
- Drawn out of catatonia by kindness (a dream)Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk Ajahn Brahm dreams vividly of being tortured and retreating into a deep catatonic place for years, until a carer's kind words make him trust the world again and…
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I remember as a young monk, I had this dream once. The very powerful dream, which I remember it so well. And I remember just dreaming that I was being tortured. Don't know whether it is a past life, but it was very vivid, being tortured by people stabbing me and it hurts so much. And I went to a deep place inside myself, just to escape the pain. It's the only place I could find and it's a quite strange dream because I dreamt I was catatonic for years. Alive, but not being able to respond like in a coma. And what took me out was just these beautiful kind words, from a carer in some institution somewhere who was so kind that I trusted the world again, and allowed myself to be drawn out back into life. It's a weird dream. But what it actually showed me was the way that we hide because of the great pain of life, sometimes it gets so painful either physically or emotionally, we literally cannot take any more. We go into some sort of hiding place. Now for me, and that dream was just in a deep, deep catatonia where I would not respond to anything in the world. Or it could be just with the other protective mechanisms of unwilling to show any empathy and being violent, used to protect yourself. And the only way out was incredible kindness, which you know to me, and also in Buddhist ideas, is the power which nothing can resist. Incredible kindness, just drawing you out, from a place, a hiding place built by fear, coming out into the world, again, being alive again. It's only a dream but it was very meaningful for me.
- George's lungs clearedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A heavy smoker, George, is shown X-rays with cancer throughout both lungs; his Armadale doctor offers treatment that might add a couple of months. After talking with his wife he…
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stage four lung cancer, should be dead, came along, now he comes every year. Every year, another year of life, another donation to my monastery, "thank you very much Ajahn Brahm", still keeps coming back again, should be dead. There
- “Get off my feet”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: From Ram Dass's writings: a young disciple invites him to her father, in constant agony in hospital with no drug that works. The 'redneck' father sees the long-haired guru in…
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There was this guru, when I was a young man, called Ram Dass – you know, this long-haired hippies, you know, went to India, taking lots of drugs and thinking that was spiritual awakening, a weirdo, but he did say some wise things as well. And he went to United States, got a few disciples, ‘cause he was from Harvard apparently. He got a few disciples and one of his lady disciples said: ‘Look, my father is really sick, in constant pain in hospital, can you come and visit him, give him some counselling?’. So he said: ‘Yeah I'll go in’. So he went into one of these hospitals in the United States. And her father was like a redneck, you know, typical United States Caucasian redneck. So when he saw this hippie in his robes and beads coming in, he just: ‘What are you doing, get out of here! I'm not gonna listen to you, you freak!’ And so, you know, he wouldn't take any counselling. So his daughter started talking to her father. And apparently Ram Dass, nothing else to do, decided to give this patient a foot massage. You know, just something nice to do. And he's giving a foot massage, and for the first time in days, all the patient's pain disappeared. The pain vanished, it was like a miracle. And this guy said: ‘Get off my feet, you freak!’ He'd rather have the pain and have his whole worldview and philosophy intact, then get the pain away and having to face that there was many things in his life which he didn't understand. And that was a good example of addiction to pain, rather than giving up your views about what life is and what the reality is or what religion is. That was really quite an interesting story.
- Her chronic arthritis was goneStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A woman overseas emailed that she had been on strong painkillers for chronic arthritis; after his talks and meditation technique the arthritis was totally gone and she was off…
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I had chronic arthritis strong painkillers because of your talks and meditation technique I've got no arthritis anymore totally gone I like saying that because that gives me just this you know the old if I had any hairs on my head they'd be standing up you know just wow that's really amazing you can take something like chronic arthritis incredibly painful no cure supposedly possible just heavy painkillers just to get through the day and this woman and she's listening now well done just got off her painkillers and no arthritis no pain at all gone totally
- Meditating through the feverStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Three or four weeks into an undiagnosed fever (later found to be scrub typhus) in a basic Ubon hospital ward, with no energy and nothing working, the young monk feels low and…
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But I do remember one of the times. And I wish I had been a bit more mindful, but I can understand why I wasn't cuz I had such such incredibly low energy. Never had so much low energy as that time fever of about 3 or 4 weeks. And anyway that uh one day I got sort of depressed but not a depression which was um negative. I don't know that I thought oh this is really awful. Nothing's working. This is terrible. So why don't I do some meditation actually practice know what my teacher would teach me what the Buddha would say do something useful. And this was like three weeks or four weeks into a a very heavy fever and nothing was working, feeling just so exhausted. So I decided to meditate and obviously not cross-legged but just laying on the bed, laying on my back or half on my back, half on this, half on that and being able just to let go of my body. And it was such a wonderful experience just sitting there or not so not sitting. They're laying there with legs all over the place. We've seen people in hospital with a fever. They're not really caring about just how their body is positioned. You're all over the place. But then just going deep inside away from my body, closing my eyes. It was in a a ward of a hospital. So there's lots of noise there, but I couldn't hear anything. No smell. No taste, just going inside to some nice beautiful mind state. Oh, it's just a wonderful time. And I'm really sure that that would be when the fever stopped simply because that's the nature of the mind. It's incredibly powerful and it's so powerful inside. It just stops all this stuff in your body and very happy afterwards.
- Mum kissed his scraped knee betterStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a boy playing soccer in the London streets he falls, scrapes the skin off his knees, and runs to his mother crying. She kneels down and kisses it better — and it works every…
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used to play soccer in the streets in London if I fell over I scraped the skin from my knees I'd run to my mother crying and all she would do is kneel down and kiss it better it worked every time
- She flew from Bern just to say thank youStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Asked for a new foreword to Opening the Door of Your Heart, Ajahn Brahm recalls a woman from Bern who had flown to Perth only to thank him and go home. She had had cancer,…
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A woman came to Bodhinyana Monastery from Bern in Switzerland. And she came and she had no reason to lie. I believe exactly what she said. She said, "I flew all that way from Switzerland to Perth to find you. Now I found you, I'll go home. I wanted to say thank you personally. Cuz she had cancer, anxiety disorder, depression, you know, the whole works. You know, when you really get, you know, really screwed up inside. Said, "Doctors, no help. Psychologists, no help. Someone gave me your book, cured. Full remission. No anxiety anymore. Psychologist said, 'Go. You're okay.'" So, she wanted to come and thank me for that. And of course, as soon as said, "You have to remember, can you sign my book?" It was one of these dog-eared books. Not one of these books you put on the shelf. She had read this, I don't know how many times. "Can you please sign it?" When I signed it, she started weeping, crying. That is helping. That is aid. That is disaster relief in another way.
- The blister from a cold nailStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a public demonstration of the Cambridge psychical research society, a student is hypnotised to believe a four-inch nail on a stick is red hot. It's at room temperature. When…
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hypnotized him and they had a piece of wood with a nail on the end, very simple equipment, didn't need much to buy a nail and a piece of wood and they hypnotized this guy to believe that the nail was red-hot. It was just room temperature and they touched the nail on this man's skin, he screamed in pain because he thought it was hot, you can understand that, but to see a blister come up on his skin, that was weird
- The fall from the ladderStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Building the ablution block at Serpentine, he falls a long way when a fully extended ladder loses its footing and he gets caught in it. No bones broken, but his hands are too…
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I remember just years ago falling off a ladder in the corner of of ablution block when we were building it over in uh Serpentine. It was really a long fall. This is one of those very long ladders fully extended because uh it was um it was actually stupid thing to do. But nevertheless, he fell off the ladder, or rather the ladder just lost its footing and went all over the place and he got caught in the ladder. And you know, I was just amazed. I didn't break any bones at all. That night, I couldn't sleep very well because my hands were just I couldn't sleep at all because the hands were very, very painful. So, I went to the doctors the following morning to have an X-ray and say, "Nothing wrong there." I kind of knew there would be nothing wrong because sometimes just the way you meditate, you could look at a part of your body and heal it pretty quickly.
- The man in the latex mask whose psoriasis clearedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a North Perth / Redemptorist retreat centre near Northbridge a man arrived in a latex face mask — severe whole-body psoriasis; the mask stopped him scratching his face.…
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this guy came wearing a a latex rubber mask on his face. And I thought, "Oh my goodness, this is some weirdo from the red light district. He got the wrong place, sir." He said, "No, no, no." He said, "I've come on your retreat because he actually lifted up the face mask, had this terrible rash all over his face." And it was a warm day. He actually unbuttoned his shirt and showed me his chest. Had a rash all over his chest. He had psoriasis, quite severe, and he even lifted up the bottom of his trousers, he said. And the rash looked disgusting. He said, "This rash, this psoriasis is over my whole body, every square inch, and it just drives me crazy. The rubber mask is so I don't scratch the skin off my face." He said, "I tried everything. Nothing works. doctors have given up on me, but I can't stand it. So he said, "I've come on your retreat." He wasn't a Buddhist, at least not at the beginning anyway. I think it was at the end. He said, "I've come on your retreat to try something different to deal with this psoriasis all over. I can't even sleep at night." And he said, "If I don't stay for your talk, your introductory talk, please, it's nothing to do with you. It's just He was just so agitated 24/7. But he stayed not just for my opening talk. That gentleman stayed for the whole nine days. And at the end of his retreat, he came to see me. He wasn't wearing the rubber face mask anymore. This is no exaggeration. He was had this beautiful smile on his face and his skin on his face was clear. Not many people have celebrated by showing me their chest. That's what he did. Unbutton his shirt with a beautiful proud smile on his face. His chest was free of the rash and he lifted up you know his bottom of his trousers and there was rash around his ankles but everywhere else was gone. He said, "Look at that ajam brah. That's all that's left. Just maybe an inch around each ankle
- The meditator twisted into a knotStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a retreat someone interrupts his meditation: a woman is twisted into an extreme, contorted posture. Afterwards he asks if she's all right; she had no idea and felt great. Then…
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There was this one lady once on a meditation retreat and uh she was twisted around into such a contorted posture that I can't show you what it looked like. If I did, you'll have to take me to hospital too. And somebody actually interrupted my meditation. Ajam brah look at that lady and she was really really heavily twisted and I was concerned for her too. I thought you know if you do that to a person with against their will that would just really torture them. So I waited for her to come out of a meditation. And when she did, I took her aside and said, "Excuse me, but when you were meditating, you were really twisted around in such an extreme position. I feel okay." She said, "Yeah, I didn't know I was twisted around so much. I felt great." And then I felt stupid. Ajan Brahmy should have known better. So the next question I asked was, "Where did you have your uh car accident?" I remember her response there was a bra at last I've got proof you have got psychic powers. I never told anything about that. And of course they didn't have psychic powers. All it really was is just you knew that that was the most common injury to your back. And somehow or other she had a very bad she told me about it very bad car accident. She was happy to get out alive and she obviously went to hospital many times and then she started twisting around against it. Didn't know what she was doing. She was in a meditation. She didn't understand that she was twisting around. Her body did it all by itself. When it twisted around that allowed the energies to flow to actually to heal some of those places in her body which the doctors couldn't get to. That's why she said she felt tremendous afterwards.
- The noisy breather on the Sydney retreatStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a nine-day retreat in Sydney one man breathes so loudly that a meditator complains. Ajahn Brahm explains he has a terminal tumour blocking both nostrils and has come as a last…
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At meditation retreats I always remember this one man when I was teaching a Meditation Retreat in Sydney many years ago and a 9-day retreat. You know that people are supposed to be quiet when they are meditating but this man (Ajahn breathing noisily) He was breathing so heavily through every meditation sitting so much so that someone came up to me to complain Can you please tell this person to keep quiet. I am trying to meditate. He had a tumor in his nasal passages blocking both nostrils. It was terminal; the doctor had given up surgery, chemotherapy, radiation therapy So the doctors have abandoned him and he came to the meditation retreat as a last resort So when I told all the meditators that, they felt very embarrassed and guilty that they were complaining about somebody who got only few weeks to live. He told me that; on the last day of the retreat (Ajahn making the sound) breathing loudly again but not thinking being silent; he had a 'pop' He said he could breath again. That's what he said 'a pop' as his nasal passage cleared but only for about 5 or 10 minutes then it closed again. That was an amazing thing which happened I thought that meditation was working but he left it a bit too late. I never thought he would survive. Few years later teaching meditation in Sydney, this guy came up to me 'do you remember me?' I said 'of course I don't remember, who are you? ' As a monk I am honest He was that man. He cared with his meditation and his nose had cleared and now he was going around teaching people how to be peaceful, how to be silent. because his cancer had got into regression even though he should have been dead years ago.
- The patient who took off her oxygen maskStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A doctor tells Ajahn Brahm about a patient with severe anxiety who was on an oxygen mask after every treatment had been tried — except his. She taught the patient his approach:…
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Just like there was one doctor who came to see me on a Friday because she had a patient on a Thursday who had um really severe anxiety and she was uh this person with anxiety was on a on a um uh oxygen mask because you know just to breathe and this oh I didn't actually say about the Ronnie story but anyway the grumpy story but anyway she was on an oxy oxygen mask and every type of treatment had been um dried and so except for a brah's treatment. So she said anyway, so what the treatment was was when you're anxious, when you have a panic attack, understand it, feel it first of all. Where is it? And for her, it was on her chest and really get to know it. Don't fight it. Don't try and get rid of it. Get to know it. And once you get to that, that's actually it's a not the best title for a book, but you know, the Chinese art of war, know the enemy, know yourself. Thousand battles fought, thousand battles won. Just know the sickness, know the problem, know what's going on. Once you get to know it, then we taught her to be kind to it by giving a nice massage on the chest. Nice massage on the chest. to be kind, not to try and get rid of things, but to get to know it and be kind to it, make peace with it, be kind to that physical manifestation of anxiety. And she told me afterwards, the next day when she went to check on the ward, that patient had an oxygen mask off and said, "I'm okay now. Can I go home?"
- The Singaporean monk, the snake book, and the witch doctorStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Singaporean monk in NE Thailand asks for the snake book — to identify the snake that just bit him. Fang marks swell; village has thrown away antivenom. A herbal 'witch doctor'…
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Singaporean monk who came to stay in Northeast Thailand. And one day apparently he came into our library in what? banana chart and just said, "Oh, can I please have a look at the snake book? It has all the different species of snake in that part of Thailand and also describes how venomous they are." And as he was given a snake book, the librarian was just not really paying too much attention. And a Singaporean monk was looking through the books and then oh my goodness. That's the one which just bit me. That's what a single point was looking at the book of snakes to try and identify the one which had just bitten him to see whether it's dangerous or not. And it was really dangerous. So the other monk looked to the poor uh Singaporean monk's leg, saw the bite marks, the two fang marks and so already starting to swell. And that's one time if you're a monk, you're allowed to run. You're supposed to run. You know, if any one of you got bitten by a snake and I was me, I would have to run. Even though that might kill me, nevertheless, you know, just to save another person's life. That's so important. So, this monk just ran into the village to get a doctor. Now, these snakes exist in Thailand, so you have to keep some antivenenom. But this village had no antivenenom. They thrown it away years ago. Cuz when this monk came back with one of the villagers on a little motorbike, he didn't come back with a doctor. Well, it was a kind of a doctor. What you usually call like a witch doctor. a poor villager who didn't have any injections. He had this special medicine, a herbal medicine which was supposed to be really really powerful. And the herbal med herbal medicine man started doing some chanting. And he put this medicine in his mouth, started chewing it, mixing it with saliva, and then spitting it on this poor Singaporean man's wound, which was getting really big by now. And this Singaporean, imagine that was you. How would you feel? This Singaporean who was highly educated looked to the other monks and said, "Can I please have a proper doctor?" But then looking at this Singaporean, now this Singaporean and this witch doctor doing chanting and spitting over the wound, you could see apparently what the other monks told me. the the two fang marks started to get smaller and smaller and smaller and the inflammation got less and less and less until the inflammation totally vanished. The two fang marks disappeared and that Singaporean mark was totally healed
- The tangled brain cleared before the second operationStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A Malaysian man in Penang had a rare disease he described as things in the brain physically tangled; after one painful operation it seemed cured, then recurred on CT. Terrified…
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this guy in Pinang is a Malaysian gentleman. And he told me, "Oh, he had this terrible disease, a very rare disease where the best way he could describe it is things in the brain were all tangled up, physically tangled." And he said he had one operation for that and it's really painful and very sort of unpleasant. But he went through it and they thought it was cured. It was very very rare. And then when later on he had some aches and pains in his brain, in his skull, then they said again that it's reoccurred. It's very very rare that reoccurs, but it's back again. They showed him the the CT scans and he was really scared because you've been through these terrible operations once. You don't want to go through them again. Ah, what am I going to do? And so I told him about meditating, meditating properly and just relax. Don't be afraid. Don't try and cure it, but care for it. That's s the trick there. When you try and cure things, you get tense with it. When you care for it, you just allow it to be really relaxed and at ease. And so he did that. And I think straight after the what was supposed to be the operation, he came back up to Pinang, I think, just to see me and just to thank me. He said, "What happened?" He said, "They took the CT scan again." You know, just before the second operation and they said the words to him, "Uh, sir, I'm sorry to say this, but there's something wrong with the CT machine. The cat's going. We have to do it again." And they put him through the CT scan again and realized nothing wrong with the machine. It's something they didn't expect. They whatever the disease was scrambling up some of the stuff in his brain had actually unscrambled and he was perfectly healthy again. So what the heck is going on? They never seen that before. That's he did that sort of procedure in Singapore
- The Tibetan doctor's pulse diagnosisStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As Ajahn Brahm recalls from a Buddhist magazine, a newly arrived Tibetan refugee doctor with no English is tested in a US hospital; reading a patient's pulses, he says there's a…
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And I remember reading an article in a was a Buddhist magazine some years ago where they had a traditional Tibetan doctor who had only just came over from Tibet as a refugee, but he was one of the famous doctors in Tibet. He couldn't speak any English or that he could even read. And they took him into a hospital in the US just to test him out. They showed him patients and asked him to diagnose what was wrong with them. And I think he tested the pulses like in Chinese medicine. I think I don't is it nine pulses? I think I forget how many years is now. He checked all these pulses and then straight away he said that guy's got a blockage around his heart region. He had congested arteries around his heart. Was going to do a bypass soon. That was one example. I remember this guy got it straight away. But the way he interpreted it was like blockages in energy flows. The doctors in the US using the scan showed there was a blocked arteries close to his heart. Exactly the same.
- “When did you have your accident?”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A retreatant reports that as she grew still her back became very hot, not painfully. Ajahn Brahm asks when she had her accident; astonished, she confirms a car accident injuring…
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Few years ago a person in the retreat in North Perth came up to me and said she had a very strange experience during her meditation. She was getting quite still but her back became very hot. It was like on fire. not unpleasantly so, not painfully, but like an information was occurring there and she did not know why. So she came and saw me afterwards and say, "What's going on?" I was meditating there and suddenly got really warm and hot. So I asked her, "When did you have your accident?" And she looked at me and bra you read my mind had a car accident a few years ago. Yes. And you injured your back and shoulders. Yes. How do you know? Look, it's not psychic powers. It's just you told me because this is what happens.
- “You're so lucky” — counselling a rape survivorStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In Malaysia, as a last resort after counsellors, doctors and psychiatrists had failed, Ajahn Brahm is asked to see a woman, and deliberately learns nothing beforehand. She tells…
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one of the most moving stories was when I was in Malaysia they asked me can I please counsel somebody because she was in a big mess and no one had ever managed to do anything for her counselors doctors psychologist and psychiatrist so I was one of the the last throws of the dice for this woman and I never asked what she'd been through and why she wanted to see me I didn't want any preparation because I knew if you're going to help anybody the less plans you have the less knowledge the better so you can actually just be with a person and get right into them and find out who they are and what to do cuz the more plans and expectations you have the more knowledge that actually stops you seeing the truth that's one of my sayings never allow your knowledge to stand in the way of Truth so we know if you hear what's happened to her then you think about it and you you're not really seeing the problem anymore keep your mind perfectly still and open and peaceful so that's what I did with this woman I just didn't know who she was and asked her know what happened and then again one of those skin creeping moments when she told me how she was violently raped brutal raped don't know how people can do that to another human being but it happens and when she finished her story you know my mind was so still horrified but still The Words which came out of my mouth to this day shock me it was automatic not be meditated the words came out you're so lucky to have been raped what did I just said and then I looked at it and understand why I said that I said I just I look deep inside of you you know you have Incredible strength resources you haven't tapped you know you are going to find a way through this and when you do you are going to say something be able to say something which I can never say you'll be able to be with someone who's had that experience and tell them that I know how you feel that's such a wonderful thing to say to someone else to empathize with them to say look you're not alone I've been there too I can't say that you will be able to say that you will be able to put your arm around not just your real arm your spiritual arm and say I know what you're going through but you you will be able to say something even more you'll be able to say I know the way out of this I know the way out of this incredibly black dark painful hole take my hand come so that's why you're so lucky you'll be able to give heal care and relieve the pain there so many other women well I will not be able to touch them I can't get there you will be able to do that that's your meaning Embrace turn that experience into your garden which I hope she's done