Stories about suicide
4 Buddhist wisdom stories about suicide from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Jagaro keeps eatingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A distraught Thai woman bursts into the monks' meal crying that her friend has shot herself; Ajahn Jagaro calmly keeps eating for a minute or two until she quietens, then puts…
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One of the first times I saw this and it was very impressive was the former abbot and Spiritual Director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia Ajahn Jagaro. I was with him when he was a monk just learning his trade in Thailand. Because we do learn a trade - this is a training which we go through. And we were having our morning meal when a Thai lady ran into our dining hall. She ran in, and she's obviously very upset, because they don't usually do this - interfering in a monk's meal. And she was saying something in Thai, and I actually caught it after a while, she said "Suchin is dead! Suchin is dead! She shot herself! She's committed suicide!". And I got really quite excited too because I knew that lady, she had cancer, we've been going to see her, talking to her, counselling her. She was a close disciple of the monastery. And that morning she had shot herself, and this was her best friend who found her body. She came in to the monastery just straight away, completely distraught having found her best friend committed suicide. You can understand what she felt like. And I understood that, and I looked to Ajahn Jagaro who was the head monk at that time to see what he would do. He understood what she'd said and he put his head down and carried on eating. And this lady - "She shot herself! She killed herself!" - and the monk just carried on eating as if nothing had happened. And after about one or two minutes she stopped moving her arms up and down, she stopped shouting, and at that point Ajahn Jagaro put down his spoon, put aside his bowl, and said "what happened?" I thought it was a beautiful piece of psychological calming a person's emotions down. Because he was not responding with anxiety to her great distress, he was just calming her down just by his actions and by his softness, she too calmed down in the space of one or two minutes. It was the most brilliant counselling I'd seen for years.
- Suicide is stuffing up one exam questionStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Parents who used to come to Friday talks lost a child to suicide just before the TEE exams. Ajahn Brahm frames a life like an exam of many papers and questions: stuffing up one…
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there was one I don't know if the parents are here this evening. They used to come most evenings. Uh they uh their kid uh committed suicide just before the TEE exams. Uh he's doing very well. There was no reason why he We don't still don't know why people commit suicide, but there it was. Committed suicide. And of course, they were very distraught. And I said, "Look, in the "How many papers in each subject? Two." I didn't really know where I was going with this. But so, that's 10 papers. Maybe say five questions in each paper. So, that's 50 questions decide whether you're going to get to university or not. So, you've got 50 questions. If you stuff up one question, does that mean you're not going to go to university? Of course not. So, committing suicide is stuffing up one question. But keep that in perspective of everything else you've done in your life. So, you can't measure a person's life just by the ending. Yeah, they committed suicide. It's a stupid thing to do. But what about all the other things they did in their life? Does that count for nothing? Of course it doesn't. So, when you look at their whole life, not just the ending, their whole life, they're probably really good person. They did a lot of kindness, a lot of love, a lot of a nice person to be around. But you know, they the last question in the exam, they they messed up that answer. But the rest of the questions were perfect. So, such a person would get a good rebirth. But if they've lived a terrible life and been selfish and hurtful and cheated on everybody and everything else, then it doesn't matter how they end their life, they're still going to have a bad rebirth. So, don't just judge a life by the way it ended. The life is bigger than the end. Much bigger. And anyway, sometimes you don't know why a person did these things. So, I It's very hard to judge. What I really don't like is people who say, "Suicide, therefore you're going to go to hell. It's the worst thing to do. It's a bad thing. I don't know where people get those ideas from. It's already bad enough if a loved one has committed suicide and you hear those other stupid people go along and say, "Oh, they're going to go to hell, it's a bad thing to do." That makes it so much worse and it's untrue. So, look at the whole life, not just the ending. And trust a good person will get a good rebirth.
- The leper's smile was bigger than anyone's in PerthStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: On a Ganges tour, walking back to the tourist bus through a leper colony, Ajahn Brahm is approached for money. Explaining he is a monk who cannot carry money fails; he hugs the…
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One thing which changed me was when I went over to India. When I went over to India, I remember seeing this Actually, we you know, we went on this little tour down the Ganges River and on the way back to the bus to take us to our nice hotel, as people do when you visit India. On the way back, we passed through this leper colony. First time I seen real lepers. This is quite a few years ago. And of course, you know, they weren't all that hygienic. They had bandages on, but you know, dirty bandages. You can see the blood and pus coming out through the the bandages. And of course, they were coming to me, not because I had a brown robe, because I had a white face. And a white face meant money. So, they came and asked me for money. And I tried and I was stupid monk sometimes. I tried to say to them, said, "I'm a Buddhist monk. I don't have any money. That's one of my rules." And how would a leper understand English for a start? In India. And I realized I was getting nowhere. So, the only thing which I could do, which I thought I could give him, I could just give him some compassion, kindness. I just put my arms around him, gave him a hug and a big smile. Now, I gave him what I thought was a big smile. But what that leper gave me back was a much bigger smile than I've ever seen for years. I can't see any of you smiling like that leper. Even now. That was a big smile. And that blew me away. And I always remember that to this day. Actually, I could I can visualize it now. How on earth, I thought, you know, on the bus and many other days on that trip, how on earth can a leper be so happy? And he was showing incredible happiness. And when I came back to Perth, where are those smiles? And you haven't got leprosy. You've got nice houses, good health, health card. You can go to any hospital under Medicare. You can get bulk billed if you're poor. You eat very well. You sleep very well. You can go on holidays overseas and live in air-conditioned houses or heaters this time of the year. What are you worried about? And you started to see from that that suffering is not just having no food in your belly. Suffering is not sleeping out in the cold. In Australia, the suicide rate is much, much higher than in Benares, India, with all the poverty there. Why is it that those lepers would never contemplate killing themselves? But rich, beautiful, wealthy, young people in Perth do. Why?
- Two crooked bricks at the Chinese universityStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Invited to the Chinese University in Sha Tin (captioned Chartin), Hong Kong, because of student suicides, he told the two-bad-bricks story — wanting to blow up a wall over two…
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they invited me to the Chinese university in Chartin and the reason was because they had lots of uh students committing suicide and that's the story I told apparently it worked many of those students the suicide rate went down said why I wanted to blow up a wall destroy it because I saw two faults how many Kids see a couple of faults and they focus on that's all they see. You can understand why you want to blow it up. You can't stand it any longer