Stories about kindness to oneself
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about kindness to oneself from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- The executive who slept for three daysStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a retreat in Sydney many years ago, an executive arrived at 11:30 at night after tying up loose ends at work. Told in her first interview that most people are tired and that…
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the classic story many many years ago teaching a retreat in Sydney and an executive you know from some big company in Sydney she arrived really late about 11:30 at night because you had to try and tie up all the Loose Ends before she could arrive at The Retreat so she arrived in the middle of the night so she missed the evening talk and when I sort of uh she asked for quick interview in the morning when I told her this that most people are tired so to practice your kindness and take as much sleep as you want she really took that advice on board she went straight back to bed got up for lunch after lunch went to sleep again she got up in the morning just before breakfast after breakfast went to bed got up for lunch went to bed again afterwards she said for the first two or three days she slept and slept and slept she was just catching up after 3 days she had hardly done any meditation at all but you felt so good as you do do when you really caught up on your sleep I really feel got energy now I feel healthy and then the next three days you know she started to get into her meditation and she caught up with everybody else so by the sixth day she was on a par with all the other people and of course the last few days she just took off she was one of the star meditators really got some really deep meditation and I used her courage and wisdom as an example for all others
- 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 young people's biggest problem: tirednessStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At an afternoon youth seminar in Malaysia for about 200 people aged 15 to 25, the participants wrote their biggest emotional problem on slips of paper. Ajahn Brahm expected…
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I was invited to spend the day at a youth seminar in Kuala Lumpur, it's a very interesting occassion, about 400-500 young people 15-25, doing all sorts of interesting stuff, one of the things they were doing is that they asked all the people there, what is your most difficult emotion as 15-25 year old, mostly Chinese Buddhists over in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. What do you find most difficult of all in life? And the answer which came up was tiredness. I never expected that before