Stories about imperfection
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about imperfection from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- “In the building trade we call it a feature”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After Ajahn Brahm tells the two-bad-bricks story at the Cancer Support Association, a builder reassures him professionals make the same mistakes — and shares the trade secret:…
Read full story
Once when I was teaching in Cancer Support Association over in Cottesloe, they're still over there. Teaching...teaching that story because sometimes going through chemotherapy and radiation therapy can really cause a lot of depression. So I told that and yeah you got cancer but there's many other things happening in your life. Look at all the parts of the body which haven't got cancer. There's two bad bricks there, two bad tumours, what about the other parts which are beautiful, which are healthy? Look at that, it actually takes away a lot of fear. And anyway I told that, one of these builders came up afterwards and he said Ajahn Brahm please don't be upset you made two mistakes when you're laying bricks, professional builders do the same, he said. But then he said I'll tell you a secret, and I've told his secret to millions of people...internationally. He said...don't tell me your secrets, they'll be on YouTube next day...[LAUGHTER]. He said, in the building industry where we make a mistake like that we call it a feature. We call it a feature and we charge our clients an extra few thousand dollars for it.
- Sunsets need cloudsAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile from the hills at Serpentine: the best sunsets come when there's cloud or dust in the sky; the imperfections spread the light into crimsons and gold. Without them the…
Read full story
Sometimes there are some very glorious sunsets. But the best sunsets are always when there's a cloud in the sky, or when there's some dust from a hot day, `a windy day. As it's the dust, it's the imperfections, which spread the light into these glorious crimsons and gold. When they're not there, the sunset isn't beautiful. It's imperfection, which is the cause of beauty. It's imperfection which creates this beauty in our world.
- The floor the monks finished overnightStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Building Jhana Grove for an Easter 2008 opening by its patron, former Premier Geoff Gallop, Ajahn Brahm is assured it will be ready well ahead of schedule. On the Thursday…
Read full story
Notice the floor in the meditation room, it hasn't got a carpet because we thought there's some people want to meditate and they have allergies. So, it's just a bamboo floor. It's very beautiful, but on bamboo floor. You know what happens again, Ajahn Brahm being the builder. I'm not really the builder, but it's my project, so I had to make sure everything was done properly. And it's a huge project, I asked the person in charge of doing the building, "Are you sure it's going to be ready by Easter 2008 or nine or 12? What was it, about 12/13 years ago? 2008. Are you sure it's going to be ready?" He said, "Yes! No trouble at all! Well ahead of schedule." And I should know by now. I'm really stupid. I trust people too much. Because it wasn't. It was a real rush. Especially the last day. We're going to have the opening ceremony, it was on the Easter retreat. And we're going to have it on Friday, the Good Friday. And we invited even the the former Premier, Geoff Gallop. He was gonna, he still is the what do you call it? The patron of Jhana Grove Retreat Centre. And he was gonna come and open it for us. And as soon as the opening was finished, we're gonna have our retreat, the 8/9 day retreat, and we had all this ceremony all arranged. And you know what happened? You know what happened? It wasn't finished. Thursday evening. Half the floor had not been laid. It was just concrete. Half the floor was finished. Half the floor was bare concrete. We tried to get floor makers in to come and finish it off for us. Would they work on Thursday evening, before the long weekend? No way. So what happened? Duh duh duh, in come the monks like the seventh cavalry to save the day again. And it was brilliant. It's beautiful. Ajahn Brahmali and Ajahn Santutthi, they were the main collaborators. They worked till 4am. All night. 4am. And that's a beautiful job they did. If you sit on that, when every time I see that, I feel so much joy and happiness. Just finishing off like that. They had a lot of fun. A lot of joy, not sleeping, working hard. Had an hour or two to sleep before we started the ceremony in the morning, big ceremony all day. Have a look at it. It's gorgeous. That is how we work. Do we get paid? Imagine if we did get paid. There'll be it's Easter. So that's double time. Overnight, that's double time again. So, night time work, oh, they could have made a fortune. If we were paid. But we don't do that. Do it for the fun of it, the joy of it because you don't have fault finding. You have the opposite. Joy finding, beauty finding. And that's one of the reasons why we don't get paid, we get exploited. Please exploit us some more. We don't think like other people. So instead, we just see the joy of doing these things and the wonder of doing these things, which means the fault fighting is not there. So we don't get upset and don't argue. And if you notice carefully, there is a mistake in that floor. Have any of you seen it? It's in the corner, which is closest to the entrance door. Doesn't quite match. But that's beautiful. It doesn't have to match and be perfect.