Stories about teacher-student
5 Buddhist wisdom stories about teacher-student from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Chah's eyes stop on the four-year monkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: At Magha Puja at Wat Pah Pong, before thousands of lay people and some 150 monks, Ajahn Chah's gaze runs down the line of monks, passes the four-year monk Brahmavamso — then…
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Imagine this, this was in February after my - I had only been a monk for four years, and this was the second biggest festival in the whole Buddhist calendar in Thailand. The full moon of February. It was called Magha Puja. Second only to Vesak in its size. So together with all the other disciples of my teacher Ajahn Chah, we went to his monastery, Wat Pah Pong, where there must have been five or six thousand people, lay people, and all the monks were there as well. And in the evening after the chanting, it was time for the talk, for the sermon, and I was looking forward to hearing Ajahn Chah teach something inspiring. But sometimes he didn't give the talk. Sometimes he would ask his second monk or his third monk to give the talk. Sometimes he would ask for any monk to give the talk, and that was scary. And what he'd do, he looked down this line of monks, this line of maybe 100, 150 monks, and if his eyes stopped at you, you were in trouble. Big trouble. So I remember this very clearly, his eyes went down the line, past all these very senior monks who could give really good talks, and he came to me, and went past. Phew. I was so relieved he was going to choose someone below me, someone who could speak Thai, because the talk had to be in Thai. But then his eyes stopped and went up the line again - he was a sadist - and stopped at me. "Brahmavamso, get up and give the talk!" I'd only been four years as a monk and I had to give the talk on this huge occasion in front of about six or seven thousand Thais. As I tell the story, it was 6000. Now it has gone up to 7000. This is just what happens when you give talks. And with all these senior monks and in front of my teacher, how would you feel? You were trained it didn't matter. You just went up there and gave a talk in Thai. It didn't matter how it came out, because the whole purpose of that was teaching you how to overcome your fear.
- “Another hour!” — Ajahn Sumedho's four-hour talkStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Sumedho gives an hour's talk in Thai to the overnight lay guests; each time he stops, Ajahn Chah calls “Another hour!” — through mumbling, people leaving and snoring —…
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Ajahn Sumedho, it was him who was asked to give a talk, not on such a big occasion, but on the weekly talks, to all the lay community who were staying in this monastery overnight. So he gave a talk in Thai. It was sort of all right, but westerners giving a talk in a foreign language, it's difficult. Sometimes you say the wrong word and people laugh and you don't know what you've said, but you find out afterwards. You get very embarrassed. And after he finished the hour, he went to stop the talk and go and sit down, but Ajahn Chah said, "Another hour!" And he ordered this monk to give another hours' talk in Thai. You know, that's very difficult. You end up repeating yourselves, telling the same stories. You know, I tell the same stories, but I usually wait two or three weeks, you know, before - and that's why I really like - what I really like talking to is old people who haven't got such a good memory, because then they can always laugh at my talk jokes every week, even though it's the same joke. So he had to do another hour. And when finished the second hour, you know, he said, "Now the talk is over", and Ajahn Chah shouted out, "Another hour!". And at that point, many people got up and left. It's very embarrassing when you're giving a talk and people leave, but he had no choice. He had to keep on speaking. And now, of course, you get lots of pauses. You think, "Well, what am I going to say and how am I going to say it?" And eventually he finished. He finished the third hour. By that time, many people had left. And those people who were still there had their eyes closed, snoring. They weren't paying attention. But he got through the third hour. And then Ajahn Chah said, "Okay, another hour!". And the poor monk had to give another hour of talking. The worst possible talk you can ever imagine. Just mumbling, saying anything when everybody had left, except Ajahn Chah probably. And then Ajahn Chah finally, after four hours, let him off. And he said after that experience, he was never, ever afraid of giving a talk ever again.
- “If you're going to sweep, give it everything you've got”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A busy Sydney man flies to remote north-east Thailand just to ask Ajahn Chah his life questions, but after hours waiting among 200 people he gives up. With an hour to kill, he…
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He lived in Sydney. He came to see me in Perth and no one else knows his story except him because it's a personal story which changed his life. He told it to me, I share with other people. When the great Ajanchar in Thailand started to become famous, this guy in Sydney heard this and he wanted to ask a real wise person these important questions he had in life. And so he traveled all the way from Sydney to Thailand not to go to any hotel or resort just to see Ajancha, ask the questions and come back home again. A very busy man, big family. So he finally found the way to the northeast of Thailand, which is quite remote, and find where this monk lived, find in the monastery where his hut was. And he succeeded. He saw this great monk surrounded by about 200 people, all wanting to ask their questions. And he waited and waited and waited and he wasn't getting anywhere closer. If ever that happens to me, please Buddhist society, buy a machine, take your number. And so I say, calling number 64, please come up to ask your question. Have you been to those places where they give you numbers and they have to wait until your number comes up? I did that about two months ago. I went to get my visa to go to Indonesia and I was waiting. I got a ticket and I was waiting there for 1 hour and then I had to go for lunch. So never got my ticket. uh answered. Anyway, I actually gave it to somebody else cuz I was ahead of them. I have my ticket. That's very nice. If you have these tickets, don't screw up. Give them to somebody else. It was really nice. Anyway, what was I going on about asking questions? Yeah, he was surrounded by all these people. So, this guy's waiting a couple of hours, two and a half hours, getting no closer. So, he he gave up, came all that way just for seeing the monk, and he realized there's no way he could see him. And so he was walking to his uh taxi to take him back to the airport to go back to Bangkok to fly back to Sydney and he realized he had another hour to kill and he saw the other monks were sweeping doing some cleaning in the temple. Now remember, if you volunteer to do some cleaning in any temple, even this one, it's amazing the karmic, the good karma you get, just washing up the dishes on a Friday evening, sweeping, tidying up the chairs. You wouldn't believe the amazing good karma you get by helping out the temple. So what he did, he saw them sweeping. He picked up a boom. He started sweeping too. He was sweeping, sweeping only for five or 10 minutes and he said he felt a hand on his shoulder. And when you feel know someone behind you putting the hand on your shoulder, you turn around abruptly and that hand was connected to an arm and that arm was connected to Ajancha. Wow. Now, those of you who have lived with these monks, you know that they do have powers. They know what's going on. He realized this guy had come a long way and had to go home soon. So, he was actually got up from his seat. Even though the other people waiting to talk to him, went up and wanted to give this guy a teaching and the teaching was this a oneliner which changed this guy's whole life. He said after this oneliner he went back his business really flourished his family life was great his meditation really soared everything in life just got so much better from this one line teaching said if you're going to sweep give it everything you've got that's all and then he went away
- “Pushing the wheelbarrow is easy; thinking about it is the hard part”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah asks the young monks to move a mountain of leftover earth; three days of gruelling work on one meal a day. While Ajahn Chah is away the deputy says it's in the wrong…
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My teacher Ajahn Chah had just built his hall. And there was lots of earth left over. And instead of paying people or getting earth movers to move the earth, why pay money when you've got so many slaves. Like me, young monks. In those days I was fit, I was healthy, I was handsome. Not fat and old like today. But I didn't mind helping a teacher. It was like gratitude when someone had helped you so much, you just please give me something to do, I just want to help you. And so he asked us to please move this earth, all the leftover earth to put in the place around the back. Now that was not easy. It was three days of hard slog. We'd only eat one meal a day. And you really couldn't even call it a meal. It was just subsistence rations. Just sticky rice with a frog on the top. That was one of the meals. It was rotten fish curry, it stank. It was… that's what we had to eat. Because this is what the villagers ate. There was snail soup. I remember the snail soup that was just so disgusting. Because the snails are so chewy. You know, just it's really hard to break them up. You know like those rubbers you use to erase pencils that's what it was like it reminded me of. That was one of the common ones. Or the fried crickets, the bugs, the ant soup and egg soup was very common. Or buffalo afterbirth. That was vegetarian food. Think about it. It doesn't harm the animal at all. It's just extra. But anyway, really gross food. And then from nine o'clock on till about ten o'clock in the evening shoveling earth into the wheelbarrows, pushing it you know to where it's needed to go. A huge amount of three days work. And it was so hot. It was in the jungle. And there was so many mosquitoes. And it was so tiring. You didn't have time to have dinner. There wasn't any lunch or any afternoon snacks or dinner. We only had one meal a day. Wow! Even prisoners of war never had to work that hard. And I had faith. After three days it was all finished. But you can imagine how dirty you felt, how sweaty. All your robes stank and just, you know you didn't have time for a shower. As soon as you got back to your hut you just collapsed. And you woke up in the morning, alms around, have a quick meal and bound moving the earth again. Three days of really really hard work. But it was finished and when I went to bed after the third day I thought “great! Tomorrow I can have a really good wash and wash my robes and do some meditation, just relax a bit.” but that night my master Ajahn Chah, he went to visit another monastery. Just like I'm doing tomorrow. We do those things. We visit each other, help each other out. And that morning after our breakfast, the deputy monk, he made in the announcement. He said “I've been thinking of where we put that earth. It's the wrong place,” he said. We need to move it. And you know he, that deputy monk, he never pushed a wheelbarrow. Never touched it. He was one of the bosses. You know what bosses are like. They always tell you what to do but they never do anything themselves. All full of ideas but no experience. So three more days of hard work in the jungle pushing those wheelbarrows, shoveling the earth. But I still had faith. After six days it was finished. Because the deputy monk had a point, you know. Well it was almost in the wrong place. And that night, guess what happened? Ajahn Chah came back. And the following morning after breakfast he said “I told you to put it over here. Why'd you put it over there? Move it! And it was at that point I lost my faith. I never became a monk to move wheelbarrows of earth. I came to meditate, become enlightened, you know, learn the Dhamma and… that's what I was a monk for. Not as a laborer. Not as a slave. I got very angry. And you know I did say I think in the book, it's absolutely true. You did start to swear. In English thinking that you know, the Thai monks couldn't understand you. But of course they understood. The body language showed you're really really unhappy. And that I was stressed out. I was angry. For a good reason you're being exploited. You've been taken advantage of. I was so angry and upset. And that's when one of the Thai monks came up to me and he said something which I will never forget which I've shared with thousands of people. One of the great ways of overcoming stress in life. He said to me: “pushing the wheelbarrow is easy. Thinking about it is a hard part.” you know, that was worth all of that torture. Just to learn that. Pushing the wheelbarrow is a hard part. Going to work with a terrible boss that's easy. Thinking about it is a problem. Having to do all of that job being the president of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia it's easy. Thinking about it is a hard part. And of course once I got it straight away you know that the rest of the three days went really quick. And it was fun. You know we'd have races with the other monks, you got there first. And if they beat me you know, just for a bit of revenge you know, shoveling the next bit of earth and it was oh just sorry, sorry that's of I… I didn't get it in the wheelbarrow. Got it all over your face. Shoveling over each other. Just a bit of fun and games playing around. And that was really good fun. After nine days it was finished.
- “You're either going to get better or you're going to die”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Seriously ill with typhus in a Ubon hospital with no night nurse, young Ajahn Brahm is overjoyed when the famous Ajahn Chah visits — for five seconds. Ajahn Chah says,…
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That's when I was really, really down and sick as I said a few weeks ago. Really down and sick in this third-world hospital in Ubon in Thailand, 35, 37 years ago now really really bad. That was the hospital where first evening there you know you had typhus fever felt terrible, next to death and at 6:00 p.m. the nurse disappeared one hour later the night nurse still hadn't appeared and I asked the monk next to me in the next bed should we let someone know the night nurse hasn't arrived but there is something happens in the middle of the night you know you got no one to help you and that's when the monk said there is no night nurse in this hospital we only have a nurse during the daytime sometimes. If something happens in the middle of the night that's just bad kamma. That was not reassuring. Now it is true you only had nurses there for half the day at nighttime you're at your own resources and people really sick and there's no bell to ring no one would come, you scream and you know no one would come to help you. So good for a hospital but anyway after feeling so bad for day about two or three weeks that's when Ajahn Chah came to visit me and now this was this big scene even by that time he was famous and he came just to visit me. Oh I felt so so good and so happy and so relieved, the great master comes to visit me, yeah. But the euphoria only lasted for about five seconds that's all because this great teacher he came right up to me and he said to me Brahmavamso that's the full name not Ajahn Brahm, "Brahmavamso," he said “you're either going to get better or you're going to die” and then he left. His wisdom was wonderful but his bedside manner was terrible. And that's so true, it doesn't last you're either going to get better or you're going to die, that's it. Very good teaching. So if any of you are going to visit your mother this weekend in hospital Mom, I heard from this monk, you are going to get better or you're going to die, bye bye, see you tomorrow. Don't do that. That really hurt me