Stories about open-mindedness
5 Buddhist wisdom stories about open-mindedness from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Half of what we teach you is wrongStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A doctor driving Ajahn Brahm to a retreat recalls the welcome speech at his Sydney medical school: the head of the school told the new students that 50% of what they would be…
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he was the head of warp in Salford Hospital in Sydney head of the Medical School and I heard this from one of the the doctors who's taking me driving me to a retreat who said there are the beginning of his years as a as in medical school the head of the department giving the welcome speech to everybody who was gonna spend the next four years in war pins half-wit Hospital Medical School who said 50% of what we're going to teach you in the next four years is wrong this was the professor saying what we're gonna teach him next for you is 50% of it is wrong the problem is he said we're not quite sure which 50% it is
- The Buddhist soldiers from the British ArmyStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: In the UK a group of Buddhists from the British Army come to see Ajahn Brahm. He had assumed Buddhist soldiers would be dentists or accountants, but some are frontline soldiers…
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there was a group of Buddhist military who came to see me in UK a few years ago. Just like in all parts of life, even in the British army, there were many Buddhists. I thought those Buddhists would be in the ancillary services such as the dentists, or the accountants, but some of these Buddhists were frontline soldiers who had fought in Iraq and Afghanistan. Is that a good thing for a Buddhist to be doing? I'm not going to judge but that's where they were and that's what they were doing. And so I had to change many of my attitudes, and I'm willing to change those attitudes to face these people in front of me who were obviously very sincere—they weren't bad people. I could sense straightaway that they had a very strong, inner morality in them. And how can that be? It was a contradiction in all I had ever told about Buddhism. And so one of the things I told them is never allow your knowledge to stand in the way of truth. I remember that they were shocked by that. They said, "Yeah!" Because my knowledge was telling me that what these guys were doing is wrong. But the truth in front of my eyes that these were beautiful people. Which is the one you're supposed to follow? If you follow your knowledge, you'll make so many mistakes— you'll be judgmental, critical, harsh, and you'll never be able to connect, appreciate and respect people. The truth of the matter is something different. That was a wonderful experience. I still don't know understand. I still haven't really processed that totally
- The man who wouldn't drop his hempStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Two men go to an abandoned region to scavenge. Both bundle up hemp. Finding hemp cloth, one throws his hemp away and takes the cloth; the other says his bundle is good enough.…
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There's one of the old Buddhist stories—this is a story from the Digha Nikaya—where two men went out to an abandoned region where people have migrated, to see if they'd left anything of value which they could bring home for which they could make some money. As they went out to that abandoned village, one person found some old hemp, and told his friend so they made a big bundle of hemp to carry back to the village—it was worth something. And on the way, one of them noticed that there was some cloth made of hemp. He said, "This is what the hemps is for: to make cloth," so he threw away his bundle of hemp and took up the cloth. The other guy said, "No, this is already packed up. This is good enough for me." He didn't want to change. And then, later on, they found some cotton cloth. He said, "Cotton cloth is more important than my hemp cloth, so I'm going to throw out my hemp cloth and take the cotton cloth." The other guy said, "No, this hemp is good enough for me." And then they found some silk. One guy through away the cotton cloth and got some silk. The other guy—still with the pieces of hemp on his head—said, "No, this will do for me." One person was always willing to change for something better. And then after they found some silk, they found some silver. So he threw away his silk and took some silver. And eventually they found some gold, so he threw away the silver to take the gold. And when they arrived back home, one had a whole pack of gold, the other one had some hemp. And the beautiful way the Buddha told this story, he said, "The one who brought the hemp back brought no happiness to his family and got scolded by them. And the one who brought the gold back was welcomed with a lot of smiles by his family.
- The professor's overflowing cupStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Japan's greatest philosopher, whom no one will debate, decides to debate the most famous meditation monk. Serving tea, the monk keeps pouring past the full cup, into the saucer,…
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is in that old story of the famous philosopher in Japan many, many years ago. He was a professor not just at one university, but of several universities. And he was so well known. He was the biggest intellectual in the country. And just for a bit of fun, but also for a bit of intellectual stimulation, he would hold these debates with all the other philosophers, but he was so sharp, he was so knowledgeable, that no person would enter into a debate with him because he would always win. And so wondering who to debate next, he thought I will debate a Buddhist monk. They are said to be wise, but they're really stupid; he thought, I'll go and debate the most famous monk in the country and see who wins So he found this monk, this meditation monk and he arranged to have a debate with this monk. And so he went to the monastery with all of his students to debate with this monk, and being in Japan, before the debate actually started. It was the task of the host, the monk, to serve tea to the guest, the professor, and as he was serving tea to the professor, he poured the tea into the cup. And when the cup was full, he carried on pouring and so the water went into the saucer, at which point the professor said to the monk, "My cup is full, you can stop now". But, the monk carried on pouring until it went over to the cup into the saucer over the saucer onto the table, at which point, the Professor thought this monk must be a bit hard of hearing or a bit blind. So, he shouted, "Monk, my cup is full! You can stop now!" At which point, the monk smiled broadly and emptied the whole teapot until it went not just over the cup into the saucer, not just over the saucer onto the table, onto the floor as well! At which point, the professor said, "You stupid monk! I've come all this way to debate with you. And you don't even know how to serve a cup of tea. What an idiot, what a fraud. I wasted my whole time." At which point that monk said, if you haven't heard this story before, it's a great story. He said, "Professor, you are just like this cup. You're so full that no one can pour, any wisdom into you." At which point, the professor went down on his knees and said, "You've won."
- The tennis shoe on the window ledgeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A patient who floated out of her body during an operation later reports a tennis shoe on a high windowsill of the operating theatre. Staff say that's impossible — it's cleaned…
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now one of the interesting cases was of this uh person having an operation in a theater operating theater in london in uk somewhere i think it was in bristol i could be wrong there but anyway they floated up above their body and afterwards they said that when they came back and they recovered they said that in the operating theaters an old operating theater there was a tennis shoe on the windowsill there's a weird thing to say and i said of course there's no ted issue on the windowsill you know on the inside you know this place is cleaned every day it's an operating theater has to be sterile what's a tennis shoe doing up there but she said it was certainly up there they couldn't see it from the floor so someone actually got a ladder and when they actually went up on the windowsill what do you think they found the tennis shoe is a famous example of someone seeing something which should not have been seen