Stories about retreats
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about retreats from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- I don't hit sleepy meditators — I send them to bedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An audience mention of a Japanese Soto (captioned Hai/Dogen) monastery that hits sleepy monks prompts him to disagree: prisoners who saw such a documentary said they'd kill…
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there's a Zen Monastery It's A Hai Monastery over in Japan it used to founded by this monk doen about 700 almost 800 years ago now 750 years ago and uh that was supposed to um get them um awake stop their sloth and toper I totally disagree with that I remember just when I was teaching uh some of the prisoners I showed them that documentary oh they were really upset said if if you tried that on me A J rob you'd be you'd be minc me you'd be dead don't wor you don't really need to do that I think that too harsh you know sometimes of Buddism they are too harsh like kindness is much better so if you know and many of you who've been meditating Retreats with me if somebody is that sleepy I don't hit them on the back what I do is say if you want to sleep go to bed
- The supermodel was annoyed they photographed the monkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a Kuala Lumpur retreat a famous Malaysian supermodel grew fed up that at the end nobody wanted her photo — they only wanted photographs of Ajahn Brahm.
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there have been supermodels... It's true. I was teaching this retreat over in Kuala Lumpur, and they told me this very famous Malaysian supermodel was on my retreat. And, you know, she looked really nice apparently, but she got very fed up at the end of the retreat, and she complained at the end of the retreat because at the end of the retreat, no one wanted to take a photograph of her; they only wanted to take photographs of me. (LAUGHTER) I don't know why she got upset of that. That's true story; they told me she was really pissed off. And I can't understand why people want to take photographs of me Anyway, but never mind there we go. Anyway back to the tree