Stories about loving-kindness
8 Buddhist wisdom stories about loving-kindness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Apologising to the iPhoneStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A supporter hits his failing old iPhone, remembers he is a Buddhist, apologises to it and wishes it peace — and it starts working at once.
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one very, uhh, strong supporter was telling me That his old iPhone was not working, you know, sometimes you're mobile phones you used them so much and they get a bit passed it, but you know, he was just, you know he was trying to live a simple life so instead of replacing it, get a new one, he kept the old one. And when it wasn't working he banged it, he hit it and of course it still didn't work and then he realised: "I'm a Buddhist that's not the way you should do things" so he apologized to his iPhone "I'm sorry iPhone, I should not have hit you, I really apologize, I will never do that again, I wish you all peace and happiness" and he said it started working immediately.
- Christmas cards to the adversariesStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Huge clay trucks with trailers thunder down the steep, narrow road past Bodhinyana; Ajahn Brahm sees one tip over and realises anyone in front would be killed, so the monastery…
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many years ago, this is part of the history of Bodhinyana Monastery, we had a huge problem with clay trucks past our monastery. It was noisy but that wasn't the main problem as I keep on mentioning. It was the danger of those huge trucks with trailers down that steep, narrow road. And once, I saw one of those trailers tip over. They lost control. And I saw that and that was very scary. Because I knew if any one of you would come to visit our monastery or a monk was visiting the monastery or going or if I was coming or going, if we'd been in front of that truck, we'd have no chance, we'd be dead. So because of that I thought, we have to actually fight this, this is wrong. But I was very impressed with the secretary at the time, it was actually Ajahn Sujato. Because during all this time, in court cases and legal wranglings, because it had to get to that. During this whole time, it came to Christmas, and our secretary wrote Christmas cards, Happy Christmas, may you have a wonderful new year to all our adversaries. That really shook them and undermined what they thought of us. If you're having a legal case with someone and you send someone a Christmas card they think, 'My goodness what's going on here?' We even got told off, I think because we're only supposed to legally contact our adversaries through our lawyers. We should have sent the Christmas card to our lawyer who would have given it to their lawyer who would have then given it to the adversary. [laughs] Crazy system. We just sent it straight to them. So that, even actually your adversaries, you're actually giving some loving kindness because we realised it wasn't our, it was a common problem, it was our problem so we have to work together somehow or another. Even during a legal battle, no ill will.
- Opening the car boot (and the nun loophole)Joke · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Youth-group members can't open their locked car boot; Ajahn Brahm agrees to try if Ronnie promises to become a nun, gives the car loving-kindness and it opens first turn — but a…
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They where trying to open they're car, I came back from a ceremony and I was just walking down the road here, on a Saturday afternoon and our Kalyana-mitta group, they where about to go out kite-surfing or doing something weird. And anyway, the Boot of their car was locked, tight. And they could not open it! and they where trying for twenty minutes... OH! (Points) She's over there, there you are. How long where you trying to open up that car before I came along? (Lady replies, unintelligible) Only five or ten minutes, yeah How many people tried? (Lady replies, unintelligible) Only two of us, but you couldn't do it? Yeah there we go So I came along, and they said: "Ajahn Brahm, please could you use your powers to open the car?" (Laughs) So I'm always a very kind monk, and very helpful, and so I said: Ok, but one condition, I wanted to make a deal The deal was that Ronnie, at the back there, will become a nun. (Laughs) And she said yes, never ever imagining I could do it. But of course, that's what you do. You give it loving-kindness: Nice car, that was what I did, nice car, and I put the key in and I turned it and it opened straight away. And poor old Ronnie has to become a nun now. Be careful, playing around with monks just, uhhh, it's very dangerous. But fortunately, fortunately one of the other youth group members is a lawyer (Laughs). She saw the loophole straight away which is why Ronnie doesn't have to become a nun yet. She said: "You never mentioned the time, maybe in fifty years or a next life sometime, but, she promised yes she will become a nun but you didn't say when" that was the loophole.
- Seven monks in a caveStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Seven monks practise loving-kindness in a jungle cave: the abbot, his brother, his best friend, his 'enemy', a very old monk, a very sick monk, and the useless monk who snores,…
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And that was the story of the seven monks meditating in a cave. This is in the Opening the Door of Your Heart. And I had great fun telling this story when I was in the USA a couple of years ago, and listening to me was a bishop, an Episcopalian bishop, Similar to an Anglican bishop. I told this because I was feeling a little bit cheeky, See if I can catch him out, and he fell into the trap, but he thanked me for it afterwards. And he said, can I please use this in my sermon? I said, oh, please do. And it was this story of the seven monks meditating in a cave. They were meditating on loving-kindness which I hope you all know, May all beings be happy and well. May all beings without distinction, without discrimination on species or race, gender, sexual orientation, my loving-kindness goes to everyone. And the seven monks meditating in this cave, listen carefully because there's a question coming at the end. And if you've heard it before, you have to promise to please shut up. Don't spoil my fun. So, the seven monks were the head monk, the boss, the abbot. The second monk was his best friend. They'd grown up together, they loved each other, just like the third monk who was his brother. They loved each other. The fourth monk, however, even though they ordained, was an, he called him his enemy. They just had personality clash, they just didn't get on. Even though they were really good people, they just, you know, whenever one said one thing, it just always grated on the other. You know, really good people, they still can't get on. I see that quite often when people come to marriage counselling. Really good people, why don't you get on? There's something I still can't understand. You see the woman, the wife, she's just a beautiful girl, known her a long time. See the guy, amazing fellow, just be getting into bad habits, that's all. So this was a typical bad habit, this monk, two monks, didn't get on together. And the fifth monk, number five, was a very old monk. He's so old, so advanced in years. he could die any day. Just waiting for just his last breath. And the next monk was also, he was a sick monk, very ill, so ill, they never thought he would recover, no monk would know who was going to die first, the old monk or the sick monk. They were both at the end of their life. And the last monk, number seven, is what we call the useless monk. The useless monk, whenever they tried to meditate, he would always be the first one to fall asleep, which wasn't that bad, but he'd snore really loudly. Whenever they did any chanting, he would always chant out of key, if he could remember the words anyway. And even when he was wearing his robe, his robe always tended to fall off. I wonder what that useless monk is. And he was a useless monk, and as I often say when I mention this part of the story, and this is actually true, every monastery has one. (audience laugh) You can find out who it is. (audience laughs) No... He's a good monk. (laughter) He's supposed to be my attendant for the weekend. If I didn't say that, he wouldn't feed me. Look after me. Ask Ayya Hasapanna Nunneries as well, the same, they always have the useless one. Anyway, and the useless monk was number seven. And what happened next was this gang of robbers, these thieves, they found this cave deep in the jungle, and they thought, this is a great place for our hideout. After we've robbed and maybe killed, we can take all of our loot, all of our stolen goods into this cave. And they didn't have money laundering in those days. I was going to say sort of overseas banks, Panama, but I bet I'll get in trouble for that. So they didn't have overseas banks in those days, so they just had to hide their ill-gotten goods. This is a brilliant place to hide our goods. And also, they found it first. So, let's kill all the monks, so none of the monks can say the location of this cave to the police. That was what they wanted to do. But the senior monk, the senior monk was such a great talker, so convincing, if he hadn't taken the robes, he could have been the treasurer of a country like ours. I better not go further on that one either. So, the senior monk managed to talk and convince the head of the thieves to letting all the monks go except one. Because the only reason he wanted to kill everybody, or kill all the monks, is so they didn't tell where the location of the cave was. So the head monk said, look, we're monks, we keep our promises, we won't tell the location of the caves, let us go. And the head bandit said, no, I've got to be sure, I'm going to make an example, I'm going to kill one of the monks in front of the rest of you, in front of the other six, as a warning. Because if you tell the location of this cave, we'll find you, we'll come for you, and the same will happen to you. And that's the best deal the head monk could do. That one of them had to be killed in front of the others, so the rest could go free. So now the question is, who was chosen? And before you answer, I've got to go through the list again. Head monk, brother, best friend, enemy, old monk, sick monk, both at the end of their lives anyway, it was a day or two, 60, 70 years matter. And lastly the useless monk, and the useless monk had never done anything for anybody, never done any good karma in his whole life, maybe this was his chance. So if you were the head monk, who would you choose? Answer? If you know the answer, please be quiet, don't spoil it. Who did he choose? Thank you for that wrong answer because that's what the bishop said. (laughter) And when I tell the story, that's what most people say. He sacrificed himself. And that is the wrong answer but there's a reason why I tell this story which is coming up soon. Any other suggestions? Who else? Anyone for the useless monk? yeah, there at the back, I thought that. No, of course not. The answer is, those people who have heard the story know, it's a very good story once you find out what the answer is and why the meaning of telling this story. The answer was that the head monk's love for his brother was no more, no less than the love for the best friend. If you love two people just the same, you just can't choose between them. And his love towards the enemy was no more, no less than the other two. Even the old monk and sick monk and the useless monk, he loved everybody equally, he just couldn't judge between them, no matter who they were and what they did. His love was unconditional, all beings, no matter what gender, what race, what religion, what they did or what they didn't do, his love was given to everybody equally. And most importantly, his love towards himself was no more, no less than his love to all the other six monks. And that's where I told the Bishop, I said, didn't your teacher, Jesus, tell you to love your neighbour as yourself? He said, yeah, doesn't that mean to love yourself as your neighbour? No more, no less, that's what the word "as" means, to love your neighbour as yourself means to love yourself as your neighbour, equally Yes, he said, he gave me the Buddhist respect. He said that's why he wants to teach that in his sermons.
- The ants and the A-frame hutStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm builds the A-frame hut at Serpentine right next to an ant mound — against the Vinaya — after chanting and apologising to the ants and promising not to disturb them.…
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You know that big A-frame over in Serpentine still there? I built that and it was right next to an ant mount and it was a beautiful place but you're not really supposed to build a monk's hut next to an ant mount to disturb it. That's against the vinaya. But so what I did and I went there did some chanting wishing all those ants well pleased. Look, I'm sorry. I will not try and disturb you at all. I'm going to build this heart without disturbing you. And I managed to do that. I never so touched that ant mound at all. And so that once that hut was finished, I was the first person to stay in that hut. And the ants never bothered me at all. You know, they could climb in if they really wanted to. But they they stayed away from my hut. They went underneath it. They went around it, but never actually in it until one day one of the anagarakers, they weren't being mindful. They drove the tractor over that ant. I felt so disappointed. From that day on, the ants started to come into the kouti. That's no exaggeration. Sometimes your kindness can actually do so many wonderful things if you're kind to the group of ants and the ants will never harm you or hurt you. And that's, you know, afterwards if you break that trust, of course, they'll come in.
- The ATM that gave twenty eurosStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A former monastery postulant studying in Germany adopts a campus ATM that 'gurgled' at him, sends it loving-kindness every day, and one lunchtime it gurgles again and pushes out…
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The guy who was an Anagarika for one year at Serpentine Monastery Went over to Germany to complete his degree first day at a University campus he walked past the ATM machine This is a great story, and you may actually get some benefit from this, if you understand it and practice it properly So, he walked past the ATM machine and he said the ATM machine emitted a sound, he called it a gurgling type sound very difficult to define, but it made a sound just as he passed by and he took that as a welcome from the ATM machine to the campus And so from that time on that was his ATM, that's where he did all his transactions, and because he had been by a monk like me A little bit weird and crazy but, he would always give Loving-Kindness to the ATM machine. "May you be happy and well, may you never run out of cash may you're clients never hit you and swear at you when they find they've got no balance, may, you now, robbers never tear you out of a wall with a four wheel drive or blow up trying to get the cash may you live at peace and happy" that sorta stuff He'd talk to the ATM, regarded it as a personal being with consciousness and was always kind to it! And he swore to me, this actually happened, having his lunch one afternoon, on a bench, maybe about five or ten meters away from the ATM. No one had gone close to that ATM machine for about 20 minutes, he was there he saw it, no one had gone close to it! and he was sitting there, having his lunch, and he heard the gurgling sound again, the machine gurgled at him and he looked around, and he saw a twenty euro note come out of the machine (Laughs) no one had put in any credit card, punched in any numbers for twenty minutes it got twenty euros. And he went to the machine with disbelief, but it was there and he pulled it out: "does this belong to anybody?" no one claimed it but of course they wouldn’t claim it because it was the ATM's gift to It's friend
- The monk who fixed NASA's computerStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: NASA in Houston can't get a new multi-million-dollar supercomputer to work; experts flown in first class all fail. A Thai engineer suggests it may be supernatural and fetches a…
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The old story about that small company over in Houston called NASA. Small company. NASA. They were installing a new supercomput in their offices. Cost millions, tens, hundreds of millions of dollars. The main number cruncher for the whole of NASA. And once they, you know, joined all the bits and pieces together and installed it, they could not get it to work. They could not. But have you ever tried sort of a computer, something goes wrong and you can't make it work? It's really frustrating. But if it's NASA, that's, you know, it cost them millions every day that the computers down. So they got all these experts from the whole of North America, all the, you know, the big professors from all these universities. They flew them down first class to Houston. Nice hotel. Please fix the computer up. This is an emergency. And doesn't matter who they got down. No one could fix it. I'm not exaggerating the story. This is absolutely true. No one could fix this computer. And so they one of the um the workers there, he was a tie engineer. And this tie engineer said, "Well, if we can't fix it, I remember the story. If we can't fix it, perhaps it may be something supernatural. And I know the very person who could fix it if it's supernatural. There's a monk staying here, a forest monk in the Thai temple in Houston. And the advantages of monks is we don't cost anything. Give us a cup of tea and we'll fix anything for you. Good value for money. So anyway, they got this monk into the uh computer room, the main computer room, this huge mainframe computer, and then all he did was meditate. He was a great loving kindness monk. Bit of chanting, that's all. And the computer, honestly, I'm not exaggerating, after he finished his chanting and his meditation, this big mainframe computer worked perfectly. They couldn't believe it. They didn't know one didn't worry why it was working perfectly. They were just so pleased it could now work. And what can you give a monk? He doesn't need anything. So apparently what they did give him, we found this out afterwards when he went to San Francisco and one of the monks there met him at the airport. One of the monks who met him at the airport said, "Look, can we just look at your passport to make sure you got a proper visa?" and they looked at the visa and they couldn't believe what they saw. His visa was a diplomatic visa with no expiry date. He come in and out of United States as many times as he want whenever he wants for the rest of his life. And this was a time of homeland security and he was just a forest monk. Sometimes these forest monks the immigrations and customs are a bit dubious about you. When I was uh traveling through United States a few years ago, they looked at me, I only have my my bag. That's my baggage. Said, "Where's the rest of your baggage, sir?" said, "This is all I have." He said, "Well, what's underneath your robe?" And what this customs agent said, we said, "Is there a suicide belt under Europe?" Because in those days people would use suicide bolts. And so I opened up my R said, "No, it's suicide belt. It's only fat." And that's when the customs officer said, "Same thing." Did you get that story? Suicide belt. No, it's only fat. Same thing. But anyway, that was many years ago, so it hasn't gone off yet. I'm still alive. But anyway, he fixed his computer and he got a and I often I said this morning, it's probably true that the reason they gave him a diplomatic visa with no expiry date was not just to make his life easy, but if they needed to fix the computer in a rush, they could get him straight away. He wouldn't need a visa.
- The mosquitoes were my teachersStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm could not include mosquitoes in his loving-kindness chant; when he finally let one bite him out of kindness, it took advantage and bit…
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Being in Northeast Thailand, we'd always call the mosquitoes "Ajahn mosquito"... [laughter] ...because I learned so much from those damn mosquitoes. [laughs] That's what I thought at the time, those mosquitoes. Because even when we just do loving kindness. For those of you who are Buddhists, you know that we spread love and kindness to all people, all beings, all genders, no matter what you are or who you are. May all beings be happy and well. However, as a young man being a monk in Thailand, I just could not do that. It's impossible. I did the best I can. I used to chant, "May all beings be happy and well, except mosquitoes." [laughter] Ajahn: "May all beings be free from suffering, but not those mosquitoes. They don't deserve, what they've done to me." [laughs] I'm sure that if ever you spread loving kindness, you've also got exceptions. [laughs] But it didn't work well when I had exceptions, so I learned how to learn from those mosquitoes to be kind to them. Sometimes, I was so kind to those mosquitoes I let them bite me. They would land on my hand. I said, "Come on, mosquito, you can bite me. The door of my heart is open to you. It's only a little bit of blood. I know that you need this to have your dinner. And I like my dinner as well, especially as a monk. I know this is your dinner, so have something to eat. Do you know what those mosquitoes did? Sometimes difficult people and difficult beings are like this. They take advantage of you. They put their nose into the skin, and it's irritating. So you just endure that. It's only a few seconds. But these mosquitoes, that was just an exploratory drill. They took their nose out, walked a few steps, and tried somewhere else. [laughter] Ajahn: They were fussy. You have three or four bites just from one mosquito! They were taking advantage of my kindness. [chuckles] That's just the nature of mosquitoes. It doesn't matter. I have plenty of blood, and I learned a lot from that.