Stories about punishment
6 Buddhist wisdom stories about punishment from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- 'The execution was too fast'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At a conference on reconciliation and forgiveness, a Catholic priest tells Ajahn Brahm of relatives of a murder victim in the United States who attended the murderer's execution.…
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I was sitting next to a Catholic Priest who told me an anecdote from the United States, where some of the relations of a person who was, I think killed, murdered, attended the execution of the relation's, loved-one's murderer. And after witnessing the execution, came back and said, the execution was too fast. It should've been slower. That really hurt me so much.
- The man sentenced for having a coldStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm recalls Samuel Butler's satire Erewhon, read as a student: a society where what we call crime is treated as sickness needing therapy, while illness is punished as…
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there's a wonderful book written written over a hundred years ago it's called "Erewhon," by Samuel Butler. And apparently, that really influenced the great British playwright George Bernard Shaw. It changed the way he looked at some of these social problems and the reason why it was a very effective argument against the way we treat "criminals," or people who've done harm, with punishment, was that it used the satire. It envisaged a society in which, what we call crime today, is looked upon as being a sickness and therapy, therapy, therapy is the only response to crime. If somebody steals, they go and see a doctor. If somebody rapes, that's looked upon as being a sickness. Punishment is not really looked at at all. But somehow, a rehabilitation of trying to work out and remedy that glitch in human nature. But, when it came to health matters, if you were sick and ill, that was because you were careless and you were punished. Part of that book, a chapter which I will always remember, was of a court scene in which there was a poor man who had a cold. And when he had a cold (there's many colds going around right now [directed at audience], there's a cough already, you'd be in trouble in this society), because he had a cold he was in the dock, charged with being sick. And because he was sniffling, he had no defense and so the judge pronounced him guilty of having a cold and he, before he gave judgment, uh, sentence sorry, the punishment, he said, "This is not the first time you appeared before me, you were here last week or three weeks ago with a cold. I warned you then, if you don't eat better, take better care of your health, let go of your stress, it's your responsibility to be healthy and you have been negligent, and your cold is causing a danger to other people! You're being heedless, you're not caring for others, you're spreading your germs to other people, that's not appropriate, you should be punished: three years in jail for having a cold, being a repeat offender!
- The naughtiest noviceStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah, laughing, tells Ajahn Brahm about his naughtiest novice: an old monk slept so deeply in the afternoons that nothing woke him, so the novice tried to push a jackfruit…
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remember him once talking about the naughtiest novice he always like talking about these novice marks he said the naughtiest novice remember talking he was just laughing all over said this is what he's done this is on the side this naughtiest novice there was this old monk who was always really really sleepy so he sleep in the afternoon so when he slept he slept so deeply and nothing would wake him up so the no novice got one of these jack fruit seeds now jackf fruit seeds are about this big and he I'm going to tell you this because Adent child told me this he lifted up the back of his saong and tried to put it in his anus you know so be constipated this was a naughty novice and he tried to get it in but it was just couldn't get it in so he tried a couple of times so you can imagine sort of you know what stuff which was smeared on it so the novice started chewing it to make it soft enough that you push it inag fin vanished it so this poor old M when he woke up oh I can't go the toilet I can't get the toilet that was like a naughty novice
- The tribe that praises the wrongdoerStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm recounts an email about a tribe untouched by other cultures: when someone does wrong — steals or hits someone — he stands in the centre of a circle of the whole…
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somebody sent me this interesting email the other day and it was some tribe which has you know been totally untainted by other cultures that in this try when anybody makes a mistake or does anything wrong or bad like steals or hit somebody or he stands in the center of this circle and all the members of the tribe stand around him he's done something bad but do they punish him no for two or three days he has to stand in the middle and they all tell him wonderful things about himself what a great person he is for three days when he's done something wrong
- They had all watched a hangingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Answering a teacher in Q&A: over a hundred years ago, when hangings in England were public, someone (a psychologist, he says) went through Bristol jail and questioned 60 or 70…
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there was a study done over a hundred years ago and the tie was in done in Bristol Bristol jail in England where that time executions hangings were public but hang people didn't leave no square or something and this person a psychologist or went through the jail and other hadley 6070 people on death row about to be hunt they don't have sort of stays of execution in those days no lawyers played a lot of money which he got so committed to death usually ended up dying huh so brother 60 people he found out that almost all of them had actually witnessed a public hanging conclude it wasn't a deterrent at all
- Two child killings, two societiesStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Brahm recalls an article comparing two similar tragedies. In England, a toddler (Jamie Bulger) was abducted from a Liverpool shopping centre and killed on a railway line by…
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Some few years ago, I should've kept this article because there was a brilliant article, it was concerning the killers of Jamie Bulger, (whatever his name was) this young -- was it two or three year old -- who was abducted in the shopping center in Liverpool tortured and killed on the railway track by some, was it, eight or nine year old children. And the whole culture of England at the time especially driven by the tabloid press, was wanting the blood of those two killers even though they were very, very young and they'd done a terrible terrible thing. To take the life of a two year old, and it's not just one person's death it's all the tears and the anxiety and the stress and the devastation of all of the people who knew that child, let alone the parents. But what I never knew at the time was pointed out in this article was that at about the same time a similar event happened in Norway in the town of Trondheim, north of Oslo where I think, two boys lured (I think) a girl into the snowfields, and had similarly killed her. And the similarities between the crimes were very close. But what was very dissimilar was the way those two societies dealt with the problem. As many of you know, the Jamie Bulger case, those two kids were put into some detention center, and the tabloid press just wanted them to be really punished hard and the parents were just waiting for them to be released so they could kill them. And even the public did not want them to be released. I read in the newspapers there was some idea of sending them to Australia where they wouldn't be known, new identities so they could live their life and the British public was saying, "No they don't deserve any freedom." That's what I read. With those other two kids the following day after they were caught they both went to school accompanied by psychiatrists and a social worker. They were not put into any punitive institution. Very, very soon, the mother and father of the child who died came to a closure, came to forgiveness and moved on in their life. Whereas the parents of Jamie Bulger never moved on as far as I know. The whole town of Trondheim came to a closure. They realized a terrible act, but the only way to move forward is not to wish harm on the killers. So many years later, one of the killers of that (I think it was a) little girl in Trondheim is perfectly well adjusted having a successful life completed the education, had really moved on, and so did the family and the rest of town. There's one of the killers still has social problems and some psychological problems, but nowhere near like the pain which was spread around England because of the Jamie Bulger case. To see those two separate accounts of a similar tragedy, one where there were many victims and their victimhood was, I dare to say, cherished and attached to and made much of. And the other one, where rehabilitation was the main aim and goal, to see the effects of those two cases I sure wish I'd lived in Norway than in England.