Stories about metta
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about metta from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- The ants left a circle of kindness around the monkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A famous Thai forest monk, waiting to give a village talk, sat by an ant mound; red ants bit him until he fled, then he forced himself back and switched to metta — may all ants…
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he found a nice tree and sat down and started meditating then he realized he hadn't been really mindful enough to to to really see where he was meditating cuz there's a big ant mound right next to him and after just a minute or two he You could feel the red ants start start crawling up his legs and as they crawled up they started biting him and they're very painful but he said I'm a monk I can enjoy this [laughter] but after about 20 or 30 bites then [clears throat] there is thousands of Then he's amazing. He said he just he didn't know just jumping up and running, but he was running. He lost his mindfulness and he was running away. And at that point, he said, "No, I am a monk. I'm a forest monk." So he turned around and went straight back to where he'd been sitting and sat down in the middle of these thousands of ants again. Could you do that? So what happened next? The reason I tell the story, he changed his meditation object to loving kindness. May all ants be happy and well. Look, you know, I've got plenty of blood there or flesh. You can take some if you want, but please leave me some [laughter] or something like that. But just real kindness. You know, you've had that sort of feelings of kindness and love towards people and sometimes they're so strong even if someone is hurting you. Just give kindness and joy and goodwill towards them. That's what he did. And then the next thing he told us in his biography, the next thing he felt that the the ants stopped biting him. The next thing you could actually feel them just walking down his body rather than up his body. It's this amazing thing to see when you give kindness like that and the last ant just left him. They went into a very blissful meditation for the hour or so, hour and a half he had. When he came out of the meditation, you know, that's when what disturbed him was the sound of the the villagers coming, you know, they had their dinner and they were coming to listen to a dharma talk from him. And what he didn't really understand in that part of Thailand when they come into the presence [clears throat] of like a monk or a nun to listen to a talk that they dance. He thought this is really weird. Hadn't seen this before. People dancing when they come into the presence of a monk. He opened his eyes more fully and he realized they weren't dancing as a cultural welcome. They were dancing because they've been bitten alive by these millions of ants. And what he said and it's I totally accept this. This is what happened around him. There was a circle about maybe a meter in diameter. There was no ants at all. And then there was millions of ants all around him like protecting him
- They drew a circle that shut me outAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Poem/analogy: heretic shut out by a circle; love and wisdom draw a bigger circle that includes them in — visual for mettā expanding the in-group.
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drew a circle which shut me out. Rebel heretic. Someone to flout. But love and wisdom had the wit to win. We drew a bigger circle which included them in. And I thought that was a very beautiful little analogy, a visual that sometimes people will draw a circle and which will enclose you and just shut you out from other things. But you can always build a bigger circle. A bigger circle. A bigger circle which can include so many other people
- You've got such beautiful blue eyes — like my baby HollyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Sydney clothing entrepreneur Julie flies at short notice to London to sign a contract. Directors say the managing director is in a filthy mood and she has wasted her journey. She…
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There's a marvelous story from one of my disciples over in Sydney, Julie. I saw her just a few weeks ago, she's doing really well with her business. She was in the clothing business and actually some of her designs, or imports get sold in Myers and David Jones, so she's doing really well. But she once had to go at moment's notice from Sydney all the way to London to close a contract with some big firm over in the UK, hardly any notice at all. So she just got on the first available flight to Heathrow. Completely jet-lagged and tired, she only had time to check into her hotel before she had to go, I don't think she even had a shower, had to go to the boardroom to meet the managing director to sign the contract. When she turned up in the boardroom, the directors told her "you've wasted your journey, the boss is in a filthy mood, no way is he gonna sign any contract at all. We've met him this morning, he so angry, you might as well just go back to your hotel and go back to Sydney straight away." And of course she said “look, I've come all this way at least I'm gonna see the guy” “suit yourself, a waste of time” they said. What she did, while she was waiting, sit in a corner and meditate. She did a loving-kindness meditation. Five minutes later the door opened “Who's she??!! What's she doing??!!” I'm trying to be an angry boss, [laughter] also trying to wake some of you up as well, I think it worked. “What does she want???” And so she came out of her meditation and she told me she didn't know where this came from, but she stood up and looked that managing director in the eye and the words just came out which were “you've got such beautiful blue eyes just like my baby Holly back in Sydney”. And she didn't do that trying to be smart, she did that out of pure kindness because she’s just been meditating on kindness. And the power of that statement was so amazing, that managing director went all soft and mushy and said “Oh, do I? Really? Is that so?” and in five minutes she had a contract signed. The managing director went out and she tried to get back to her hotel but she couldn't, because the other board members crowded around her “teach us how you did that”. [laughter] And so she had to spend the next half an hour or an hour teaching some basic meditation to these board directors who'd just seen what they considered to be a miracle.