Stories about power of mind
5 Buddhist wisdom stories about power of mind from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- 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.
- Ray-Bans on the meditation demonStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Early in his practice a blood-dripping, skull-necklaced demon appears in Ajahn Brahm's deep meditation; knowing the mind creates it, he gives it sunglasses, blacked-out fangs, a…
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This is one story from my life Many years ago I think I was in Thailand when this happened I was meditating nice and peacefully and then got some nice deep meditation and I got this image in my mind right in front of me was this demon with big bulging eyes like they are coming out of the sockets (Ajahn gestures with hands covering his face) the teeth were all jagged and dripping blood. (Ajahn gesturing to the amusement of the audience) And skulls around its neck I forget what else ... really angry eyes and the tongue was coming out (Ajahn putting his tongue out and making a scary noise) Is this on the camera by the way? And it looked very very frightening But I had enough wisdom to know that this is just a creation of the mind That all it is. These negative images you create them and you can mess around with them. So that's what I decided to do; to mess around with them So just like I used to do as a naughty school kid I blacked out a few of its fangs so it had these big holes in its teeth and instead of these big scary bulging eyes I put a pair of like sunglasses RayBans on, looked really cool And on top of its spiky head I put a straw hat with a flower coming out And I messed around like that until this demon was so funny was so ridiculous, I laughed I totally humiliated that demon and it never came back again
- 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 monk who stopped the bus by thinkingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A forest monk visiting Ubon rides a bus for the first time and wonders how an engine works; as soon as he thinks about the motor it stops, and when he stops thinking it runs…
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There's one of the the forest monks a good meditator. It's a first time when he was visiting the town of Ubon. That's you know where I grew up as a monk. He was visiting Ubon and he went into a bus for the first time in his life. This was many years ago. And then he started thinking I wonder how a bus works. internal combustion engine. He never gone to school and seen diagrams of internal combustion engines. I wonder how it works. And so he started thinking about the motor. As soon as he started thinking about it, the motor stopped. It wouldn't work. And so he stopped thinking about it and it worked again. He said, "It's really weird." And then he thought about it again and it stopped. He was actually interfering with the firing of the car. But that became such a well-known story in that part of the world that when Ajent char got on an aircraft to go to London, people said to him, "Please don't think about how this aircraft works. You must stop the engine. They were all dead.