Stories about perseverance
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about perseverance from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Chah soaked to the skinStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Walking alone on tudong in the Thai jungle, with all his possessions on his back, Ajahn Chah put up his umbrella-tent with its mosquito net one night in a harsh storm. It gave no…
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One of the things he did, remember he was uh just uh walking in the jungles of Thailand by himself. They called it just going on this um uh like dutanga. All your possessions on your back, sleeping in uh under a little umbrella with a um what's it called? A mosquito net on the outside, having such few possessions. And one day when he put up his uh little sleeping umbrella, the rain was just really harsh. And just like you know, we've had some big storms here. When you have a big storms like that, the umbrella just doesn't save you anything. And it's everything he had, every robe which he had, everything which he had was just soaked to the skin. There's no one there to talk to. and he felt just so alone and almost like rejected at the time and just so wet. He said, "This is not what I really expected meditation to be like.
- The monk who trained his back muscles with mindfulnessStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A monk with a congenital spinal weakness and severe pain is told by doctors nothing can be done and he shouldn't meditate. Following a book, he rubs the unfelt muscles beside his…
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Just like, I won't say who this monk is. He had terrible pain in his spine and that was because he had some congenital deformation in his spine. Doctors at that time... He had a CT scan and said nothing you can do about it. But the doctor said I'd advise not meditating because that makes it worse. Well, I'm a monk! That's what I do! But fortunately he found this excellent book and of how... A long time ago, how to use some mindfulness to cure the problem. Because his spine was too weak and it was causing some problems. But, said this little book, there are muscles on either side of your spine which most people aren't aware of at all because you don't need to be. Much of your body you don't need to be aware of it, so you're not. So the book says start off, take your hand and rub those muscles on either side of the spine as an exercise every day for an hour or something every day. Because when you're actually touching them you can actually feel the sensation of your... And now my thumb touching one of those muscles and that creates a connection in your mind. A neuro connection. The more you do that the more you can be aware of those muscles, the more sensitive they become. Until you can actually feel those muscles without needing to touch them, just as I can feel my nose without needing to touch it. I can feel my hand without needing to touch it. It becomes sensitive. Then once you can actually be mindful of those muscles, trial and error, try and move them. After a while you'll learn how to move those muscles at will. Because now he was mindful of them you can do something with them. Now exercise them: stretch them relax them, stretch them relax them, stretch them relax them. So he did that and then after stretching relaxing them for a few months those muscles became so strong, much stronger than other people's muscles, that they perfectly compensate for the weakness in his spine. Now he can sit meditation, no pain anymore.
- The zookeeper who freed the orangutansStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At the annual John Curtin Medal presentation, Ajahn Brahm (a past recipient) hears about that year's winner: a man with learning difficulties at school who, with help and…
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And I don't mind sharing this about this gentleman uh who won the award this year and he was a person with yeah if I remember it correctly please excuse me if I get some details wrong. Uh he had learning difficulties at school but he pushed through. Now with help with encouragement he got to university to curtain university where he was studied I think animal sciences or whatever applied science and eventually he managed to with a lot of extra work tuition and help eventually to get his degree number one it says that this is agrees with my experience when I was a school teacher there's no one who can't do things. Now, if you want to get your degree in this or get an a a um qualification in something else, if you keep on going, you don't give up, there's many people out there will help you and look after you and care for you and just encourage you. The human capacity in my experience is huge. Basically anyone can do almost anything within reason just as they believe in themselves or sometimes that belief is given by other people. People inspire you. Your mentors if you get a really good mentor an inspirational teacher they take you so far in life. But anyway, eventually he got the job over in uh in Perth Zoo and he was apparently he looks he looked after the the the primates and the orangutan enclosure. And this gentleman, the first name was Leaf something. But anyway, just a person with intellect with learning difficulties looking after orangutans and then seeing what the problem really was. That apparently many of these small baby orangutans were taken to shopping centers cuz they were so cute and cuddly for promotions to sell products or something. And this is what human beings do. But apparently he knew he'd been looking after the orangutans for a long time that that really hurt the mother child bond. And he just know he just used everything he got to to stop that exploitation of baby orangutans. Next, to make sure the cages or the compounds were a little bit less like prisons and more like places where they could relax and enjoy and have some uh similarities to the wild jungles where they came from. But even that wasn't enough. So then he started to return them to the jungles of Bornea and to start a big fund of oh no what was it called something orangutan fund just now worldwide and just millions of dollars in the fund because he was he was producing providing he was actually doing something for some animals who are just really close to homo sapiens, the people sitting right in front of me now. He connected with them and basically freed thousands of them throughout the whole world.