Stories about injury
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about injury from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- 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
- 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 miner who thanked the man who cost him his legsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In early WA mining, a worker about to set explosives has nowhere to hide when a brakeless iron trolley rolls at him. It severs both legs; hours later he is found alive. He later…
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There was one guy working in the mines a long time ago and his job was to be the explosive guy. So in those days it was dangerous. So dangerous that he'd just work at nights when everyone else stopped working in this mine. I forget where they were mining. He would go there to the end of the shaft, you know, drill the holes, blur the explosives and detonate them when no one else was there for maximum safety. So he was so good at his job, he didn't mind doing that. It's just by himself, nice and quiet, take his time, do it well. And then that would fracture the rock and in the morning they'd come and sort of dig out the rock for the next day. That was his job. And so he's very very good at his job. But this one day he got a premonition that something was going wrong. And actually what actually happened was you know he checked everything that you know everything was fine. Nothing wrong with the explosives. He made these holes in the the rock and was about to put the explosives in when he heard something rumbling towards him. Someone on the previous shift had forgot to put the brakes on these big iron trolleys on the rails. And one trolley, you know, solid iron, really big and heavy, was rolling towards him to the end of the shaft. And as it was rolling towards him, he'd done such a good job with these explosives. There was no place to hide, no place to get out. He knew he's going to be crushed by this trolley. And he said what he did was just jump. So the trolley hit him at the legs and when he you know came to both legs were cut off and you know because someone had made a stupid mistake and he was there for quite a few hours before the next shift came. He actually survived and he said it was an amazing experience. He said he can't explain this but laying there with legs severed blood pouring out of he survived somehow I don't know how he had this wonderful spiritual experience you know come into peace with himself and the whole life so much so that he's when this guy who was responsible came to see him and say sorry he said no need to say sorry thank you so much you know what you've given me was birth, losing those legs, finding peace inside my own heart. Thank you so much