Stories about seeing the good
3 Buddhist wisdom stories about seeing the good from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Seven years to change a violent husbandStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: About twenty years ago a woman thanks the monks for saving her life. For seven years she had come to the centre only to get away from a husband who beat her regularly — every…
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But another way is there was a lady who came here many years ago. I mentioned this story in the "Opening the Door of your Heart". Amazing lady, she came up to me once and said "I wanna thank you for saving our lives for all the talks given over the last several years have changed my life and my husband's life all around. Her story was that her husband was very abusive to her. Domestic abuse; this is about 25 years ago. And in those days, many women would just take in and they wouldn't go to the social services to get help. I don't know if there was that help around at the time anyway. So she told us she came to this centre over here not because she was a Buddhist just as a place she could escape to for a couple of hours. where she knew she won't be hit. Brilliant, she only told me about this at the very end. But she said what she heard here was this wonderful positive forgiveness. Not just forgiveness because that's not enough So the positive part of it was whenever her partner behaved appropriately, kindly, softly then she would just go out to him give him hugs and kisses. Whenever he was abusive, I don't advice this at all She was an amazing lady. She would just take it. She said it took her seven years to turn that man totally around. She never gave any feedback to the abuse. She only gave feedback to the kindness. Little by little by not giving feedback to abuse, it just diminished. By giving positive feedback to the kindness - it grew
- Super Monk and the death rayStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: An art student who watches his videos (from Czechoslovakia, he thinks) makes a cartoon of 'Super Monk' based on his stories. The villain has built a death ray to destroy the…
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the biggest franchise if everybody really wants it anyone knows anyone in the movie industry 'I said this to somebody last Saturday, sort of, I saw this, a bit of a steal from a cartoon I saw in a Thai newspaper when I was a first-year monk, and stopped soon afterwords. It was Supermonk. Now, not Superman, not sort of Iron Man, not sort of Batman, but Supermonk. Because the Supermonk was the great character in the cartoon 'cause he can fly through the air, he had all this psychic powers, and stops all these great tragedies and terrorist attacks, but in the end, he wouldn't sort of like the other Superman throw people in jail, just give them five precepts, and they become Buddhist monks, and they live happily ever after. It's wonderful ending, just with a bit of a spirituality, and a bit of the argy-bargy necessary in movies so anyone who knows anyone in the movie industry, Supermonk would be a great one to franchise, something new they haven't seen before. And the Buddhist Society would get 10% of the revenues.
- The half sheet of paperStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At an old man's funeral his widow holds up half a sheet of paper he kept in his wallet all his life. In grade school, as two factions of boys were about to fight, the teacher…
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This was a story which I read of a funeral service, where the widow of this old man who had died, when she was giving the eulogy. They try to say a few words about the person who has died and some of the important things which happened to them in their life. And during the eulogy the widow, she held up half a sheet of paper. And she said: "My husband got this sheet of paper, when he was at grade school, before I even met him. And this peace of paper he kept in his wallet all his life and it saved him from getting angry so many times. And he told me the story of it. He said that, when he was in grade school, there was a big argument with two fractions of boys. And when it got so bad in the classroom there's about to be you know a fight. And the teacher ordered them, sit down! And get out your exercise books. In those days the discipline was strong enough, they would actually follow what the teacher said. Maybe these days, you known, been charging your luck. But anyway, they had to sit down, they were really angry, the fight would probably be delayed until after the recess, but they had to get out their exercise books. And the teacher said tear out one sheet from your books. Get out a ruler and draw a vertical line down the middle. On the top of the paper put down the name of the boy in this class you hate the most. And they all did that very easily now on the left-hand side of that line write down the reason why you're so angry at them. And they did that. Now, said the teacher, on the other side of the line, on the right-hand side, write down something you respect about that person. Things you admire about them. That was a very difficult thing for them to do. It took them a long time but they had to complete that. Now said the teacher, fold that peace of paper in half along that line. Tear it down that line very carefully. I'm now gone come around with a trash can. The left-hand sides put in the trash can. The right-hand sides, with the reasons you admire that boy, who's your biggest enemy, go and hand it to them. And the widow said: This is the peace of paper, my husband got from the boy who is his biggest enemy in that class. The one, who hated him the most. Who's so angry at him. Saying all the things he admired in my husband. And he kept that with him all his life, to stop him getting angry.