Stories about tolerance
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about tolerance from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- If they flush the holy book — call a plumberStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After Guantanamo Quran-flushing news, someone asks what he would do if a Buddhist holy book were flushed. First answer: call a plumber. Then: you can flush the book or blow up…
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Guantanamo Bay flushed a copy of the Quran down the toilet. Now you have all heard about that and when they flushed the Quran down the toilet, there was a big uproar in the Muslim world. And at the same time here in Nollamara a couple days later, someone asked me a question type, "What would you do Ajahn Brahm if somebody flushed a Buddhist holy book down the toilet? And you can see those Buddhist Buddhist holy books, we got them in the library there. They're thick volumes. What you do as a Buddhist if someone flushed a Buddhist holy book down the toilet?" And I said "If they flushed a Buddhist holy book down the toilet I'd call a plumber
- You disturb the noiseAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah's line via Brahm: it is not the children's noise that disturbs you — you disturb the noise. People are noisy; make peace with it when you cannot change it.
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it's not the noise of the children disturbs you you disturb the noise of the children that's what children do children make noise husbands you know keep on saying I'll do it tomorrow darling wives there's a nature of this world people make noise and this person from Malaysia I probably got somebody else over here and it's actually not tonight they've probably from your house they probably asked the same question how do I live with a noisy annoying and noisy people because you're probably annoying and noisy as well as the other people are we always think it's somebody else is a problem don't we they're noisy with everything I'm noisy we always said this happens you know when on my Retreats which I do over in China Grove is a room this Cottage with six people and someone says can you please tell people not to snore in the Cottages and then the other people also say can you tell people not to snow we never think we snow it's other people snoring but we snore as well so live with annoying and noise in people welcome to the world people are annoying and they are noisy and you're one of them and I'm one of them as well I'm sure I'm very annoying telling the same old jokes every week and very annoying noisy so how you do tolerance self in yourself and don't disturb the noise if there's something you can do do it if there's nothing you can do just make peace with it it was amazing just how you can make peace even in noisy environments