Stories about nature
16 Buddhist wisdom stories about nature from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Crocodiles sleep with their mouths openAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: NE Thailand folk: lazy crocodiles sleep mouths open; flies walk in by themselves — no hunting needed.
Read full story
crocodiles over in northeast of Thailand would actually eat, how they would catch enough fish. They're very, very lazy, those crocodiles. And they didn't need to do very much. able to sleep out in the sunshine of the day with their mouths open. And once they were sleeping with their mouths open, of course, the flies went in all by themselves. They didn't need to hunt for flies. The flies just came
- First a flag on the summit, then a coffee shopAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On mountain summits people leave flags, cairns and carved names (he jokes about carving 'Peter Betts was here'); next comes a coffee shop and cable car. Better to leave emptiness…
Read full story
you get to the top of the mountain and someone's put a flag up there or they put a bunch of rocks up there and they carve on there. My lane name before was Peter Betts. Peter Betts was here. What do you want to say that for? So instead to really respect like a mountain, isn't it best to leave it alone? Cuz what usually happens, you start with putting a flag there. The next thing you put up there is a coffee shop [laughter] which which sells souvenirs. [laughter] That's really terrible. If you get to the top of the mountain, you found out there's a big coffee shop up there and a cable car on the other side of the road which takes you straight up. It takes Why is that not I really objected to that? Because sometimes why do we need all that stuff? Can't we just respect emptiness and nothing and its beautiful nature where nothing is disturbing it is as it was centuries ago, millennia ago. We don't add to it. We don't take it away cuz it's perfect as it already is. We don't try and cure it. We care for it
- I could only see the names of the starsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In the Cambridge Astronomical Society he learns the names of stars and constellations. In Thailand the night sky is so labelled in his mind that he cannot see its beauty — only…
Read full story
when I was at University there was many societies I joined and one was the Astronomical Society always love stuff like that and I had learned the names of the stars and the constellations that you know whether it was a Galaxy or supernova or I knew all those words and when I went to Thailand and I saw the sky at night I couldn't see the Stars anymore all I could see were the names and everyone else was saying how beautiful it was and I couldn't see the beauty all I could see was like little labels next to every Star and it took me years you know I had to do this deliberately to forget the names to an act of it was an act of will so now I can look at the stars at night I don't know which one is which and I can see how beautiful they are
- King Canute ordering the tideAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Analogy: Canute stands on the beach and orders the tide out — nature does not obey kings.
Read full story
King Canute who stood apparently somewhere in England and because he thought it was a kingly emperor with divine rights he stood on the beach and tried to order the time to actually to go out when it was coming in and obviously he made a fool of himself because you cannot control nature
- 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 ants who buried the sugar cubeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A visitor at the Serpentine monastery puts a hard sugar cube on top of an ants' nest to test them. Instead of breaking it up, the ants excavate beneath it day by day until it…
Read full story
Years and years ago, at our monastery in Serpentine, there were many ants' nests, there was this one visitor, he decided to give the ants an intelligence test. Cause you know, the ants' nest, he put a sugar cube on top of the ants' nest. The ants love the sugar. It's like one of these hard cubes, I wonder what they would do with this. Would they break it up to take it into the small holes, to take it into the centre of their nest? What would they do? And he really couldn't believe their intelligence their engineering prowess. What the ants did, they excavated under the sugar cube. So day by day, the sugar cube got lower and lower and lower and lower. When the top got below the surface, they put the earth on top again. Now it's exactly the same way, I think the Vietcong buried the American tanks, during the Vietnam war, they actually drew them underground. That was just a community of ants, who've never seen a sugar cube before, ever.
- The birds queued — and punished the queue-jumperStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Near the Burmese border in hot season he put out a water bowl by a knothole. Birds of different sizes lined up in a queue; when one jumped the queue the others piled on, pecked…
Read full story
to see all these birds of different sizes and species line up in a queue. Have you ever seen birds queuing? I have. And it was true. That's what they did. There are maybe eight or nine birds, maybe a dozen at the best, you know, and they were big ones, small ones, and they were sitting there just waiting until the one in front finished and then the next one would actually come in. And of course, it is fascinating. And then there was always every afternoon one bird would come in and would actually jump the queue and try and get in there first. Couldn't wait to have a bath or have a drink. Weird. But you know what the other birds would do? They would all get out of queue, jump on that Q jumper, [laughter] pick him and beat him and whatever. And that Q jumper would fly away. And then all those birds would queue up in exactly the order they were before. [laughter] It's unbelievable. Absolutely true. And so what that really did was, you know, increase your respect
- The boy who stretched his seedlingsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: One of Ajahn Brahm's first meditation teachers recalls planting seeds with his father at five or six. After three days with nothing showing he complains; his father explains the…
Read full story
there's a story of one of my first meditation teachers in Thailand he told me I usually tell this on the meditation Retreats not usually on a Friday night he told me when I was starting out my meditation career that when he was a young boy in Thailand that his father gave him some seeds to grow in the garden he was only about five six years of age and this was the first time he grew anything so this little five or six put his little seeds with the help of his father underneath the ground underneath the soil and he would water them every day after 3 or 4 days he saw no result said where are my plants where my flowers is three days now can't see anything his father had to tell him that when you have seeds when the water gets to them they germinate they split the seed a little green shoe comes out it's probably under the ground right now pushing its way to the surface just wait for a little while and you'll see a shoot be patient and he took his father's advice and fortunately at the end of two days a tiny green shoot was appearing above the Earth so so he decided to water those flowers two times a day he was getting excited and those flowers grew grew grew until about 2 in high and that's when he lost his patience he decided to stretch them to make them grow faster and he killed every one of them but he learned a wonderful lesson you can't stretch nature nature takes its time to grow
- The frozen forest and the sacred silenceStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On his first visit home after seven years in Thailand, Ajahn Brahm stays at a new, unheated monastery in Sussex in a winter so cold the papers report 'even the beer froze'.…
Read full story
I still remember one of the amazing times of my life one of the mornings which I will never forget when I was staying in England The ..Veriliam.. Monastery, one of the first monasteries which our tradition built in England, in Sussex That was a winter time about now I have gone to visit my family I think it was the first time after seven years that I went after living in Thailand that I went to visit my family for Christmas and this monastery has just been established and it was one of the coldest winters in England at that time in a typical British news-sheet it showed me the headlines -26 degrees centigrade even the beer froze But that following morning even though it was just so cold I went out for a walk in the forest early not many people were up let alone outside of the houses in such cold weather I remember that walk in that forest even now because as I walked in the fresh snow fall you look down in the freshly fallen snow and there were no prints of any animals, let alone human beings the snow has fell the night before and I was like the first person on earth to walk in that forest and as I walked nothing moved there was no wind or even breeze not even the leaves fluttered when I stopped, the whole world stopped moving all the animals were hibernating nothing stirred It was so silent and of course my own mind went silent when you are faced with such profound and deep and powerful peace your mind can't resist resonating with that peace as if the peace gets right inside of you just like the cold can do But this was not unpleasant you became one with that peace. It became one of those magic experiences of my life just walking and then stopping and enjoying the power of silence.
- The king eagle in the mountainsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Young spiritual searcher in cold mountains sees a vast eagle (king eagle) after spotting a freezing lake of melting ice — wonder interrupting the climb.
Read full story
spying one of the biggest birds I've ever seen, a king eagle. I checked afterwards, and those birds exist. It's big as me. Huge. It was actually just sitting there looking at me. And I realized that, you know, that could do you a lot of damage. They could kill you or injure you very easily. So, very careful when you saw that, you turned around, and you walk back
- The newspaper hiding the most beautiful viewStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Walking a remote coast road in north-west Scotland on a perfect summer day — moors and mountains, cliffs, glistening green islands, reeling sea birds — the student Ajahn Brahm…
Read full story
As a student, again I was a Buddhist and I gravitated during the vacation periods to quiet places of the world. mostly to the Scotland to the North of Scotland to the moors where you could just wonder around without seeing anybody for a few days. On this one occasion I was on the Northwest coast of Scotland It was one of these beautiful summer days very often it is cold, wet and rainy but every so often in the summer time you get this perfect days and in the Northwest coast of Scotland in the summer time is paradise. you couldn't really conjure up a more beautiful scenery just so quiet, remote and unspoiled. just walking along the coast road with moors and mountains to one side beautiful cliffs, little islands dotted in the ocean as far as you could see bright green and glistening in the sun shine and all the sea birds were just reeling what I call euphoria at the time and seeing all this beautiful scenery and having all the time in the world to enjoy it because I had no place to really go plenty of time to walk just to my destination no mobile phones, no duties just walking, enjoying every moment of a beautiful part of our world. And of course I was totally silent. Until I saw a car parked up ahead of me on the road side. There was a car park there and I assumed, because I was stupid I assumed that someone who have been driving along that road and had also noticed the incredible beauty of this day in the summer time in this place and also just stopped to enjoy the scenery but when I got close I found the person wasn't looking at the scenery was reading a newspaper. This big newspaper was right in front covering up the beautiful seascape, mountains, grass, sunshine and all he could see was the news I thought what a wonderful metaphor that is of life Because what we read with our minds is all the words and the descriptions what do they have in newspapers? I know they have the cartoons that's what I always read first when I get a newspaper I really recommend the cartoons first of all. They also have; they have the wars, they have the fraud of this government or that government. they have terrorist attacks; they have all those other nasty news about life And that's what you see in the newspaper and I thought 'what a shame this is ' just on the other side of that newscript it only may be one or two millimeters you had the beauty of the world on such a gorgeous day! And at the time being quite a cheeky person; I haven't stopped being cheeky I thought of getting a pair of scissors out of my backpack I only need to cut a small hole in this newspaper so you can see what's on the other side I was very thin in those days I was an underfed poor student and this guy was a big heavy Scotsman I didn't fancy my chances if he got aggressive with me. so I just passed him by to read his newspaper, while I enjoyed the day
- The parrot that kept vigilStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A gardener coming to Bodhinyana each day noticed, early one morning at the corner of Kingsbury Drive and the South Western Highway, a parrot on a branch looking down at a dead…
Read full story
some little time before, we had a gardener who was coming up every day to do some work in Bodhinyana, and he told me the corner of Kingsbury Drive and the South Western Highway, he just noticed as he came early one morning, not much traffic, there was a parrot, was on the branch of a tree, looking down at a dead parrot, which had been hit by a car, maybe early that morning, and when he finished work, he noticed that parrot was still there, looking down, hadn't moved. The next morning, the parrot was still on the tree, looking down. About three or four days, the parrot hadn't moved, looking down at the dead parrot on the side of the road. If that wasn't grief, I don't know what is.
- The tight bud before it blossomsAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: First year in Perth someone tells him: watch a flower bud — petals press tight inside the protective sheath until catharsis, then it blooms gorgeous. Unpleasant pressure precedes…
Read full story
flower, somebody told me the first year I came here to to Perth. So many years ago, 36, 37 years ago now. They said, "Have you ever seen a flower just before it bursts into you know, the blossom, whatever it's called, bursts into flower? It's like a little bud. And if you can watch that bud, it gets you know, in the sheath. It gets so tight. As within that sheath which is supposed to be protecting it, all the little petals, the beautiful fragrant petals inside are growing and growing and growing. And the pressure is building up. In that sense, it must be very unpleasant for that time. But then there comes the point of catharsis and of change and the flower blooms. And it's gorgeous
- The ugly dead trees were condominiumsStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: New to Serpentine forest he wants to chainsaw 'ugly' dead trees; learns they house possums, birds, lizards — a condominium, not a cemetery.
Read full story
dead trees. Now I came from Europe, you know, where the trees were mostly alive. So when I saw the dead trees, I wanted to get the chainsaw out and cut down those dead trees. They were ugly. You know, who wants to live like in a cemetery forest? And so if you could take down the dead trees and all these live trees would grow up and you have this beautiful like green forest with leaves everywhere and these dead trees were just a blight on the landscape. So I thought the dead trees were terrible until somebody told me and it was true that in those dead trees that was the habitat for many psums
- They watched the sunset on TV — the real one was at the windowAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A favourite Leunig cartoon: left half, a family watches a sunset on a nature channel; right half, an open window shows the actual sunset outside. They prefer the screen a few…
Read full story
There is a family watching the TV, that's in the left half of the cartoon they're watching a sunset, a beautiful sunset, portrayed on some nature channel on the TV, and in the right part of the cartoon is an open window, where the actual sunset is occurring. They prefer to watch it on the TV and just move a few feet and look through the window and see the real sunset happening
- Trees give shade to the one cutting them downAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A forest sign in Sri Lanka: trees are so kind they even give shade to the person cutting them down — kindness that protects even those who harm you.
Read full story
Trees are just so kind they even give shade to the person cutting them down.' And that is just a beautiful thing: they're hurting, they're killing the tree, but they still give shade to the people who are destroying them. That's kindness; that's something which is beautiful; that is something which is totally illogical, 100% emotional and just so, so Buddhist: even though someone is cutting you down and killing you, you still give shade to them and protect them. That is the meaning of life