Stories about transformation
8 Buddhist wisdom stories about transformation from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Angulimala: 'I have stopped. You stop.'Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Angulimala, a serial killer in the Buddha's time (some say 999 victims, more likely 99), ran after the Buddha to kill him, but however fast he ran he couldn't catch up. He…
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One who stands out was Angulimala. He killed Some people say 999. That seems a little bit much, but probably 99 human beings. A serial killer. Eventually, the Buddha converted him. Interesting what happened there. I often tell this in retreats. The Uh Angulimala was actually running after the Buddha trying to kill him. And no matter how fast Angulimala ran, the Buddha used some psychic power so the Angulimala couldn't catch him. So this Angulimala, the serial killer, shouted out to the Buddha, "Stop! Stop!" And the Buddha turned around and said, "I've already stopped. You stop." It wasn't just stopping running. It was stopping the way the mind just tries to do things, judge things, change things, improve things. Stop. And that was such a powerful, unexpected command by the Buddha. Angulimala did that. He stopped. He became a monk. And stopped all those what we call defilements, became fully enlightened by stopping.
- Coffee for “the Dog”Story · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A prisoner who hates the cruel officer he must serve coffee — the man who deliberately made another inmate miss his wife's rare visit — accepts Ajahn Brahm's challenge to serve…
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The first time, over 20 years ago, when I told this story it was when I was teaching in prison, in Karnet Prison Farm, just down the road from my monastery. We still go there most Fridays. When I was teaching that at Karnet Prison Farm one of the prisoners complained and he said, "That is just new age rubbish. It doesn't work in the real world, especially in a prison. Prisons are tough places. If you've got a difficult person you've got to stand up for yourself. That's the only language they understand." Of course, I wasn't having any of that. I said, "I don't believe you." He said, "You don't live in prison." I said, "Monastery we have cells, we have wall around." Actually, they don't have a wall around Karnet but we have a wall around our monastery. Sometimes people, in the early years, they'd actually drive all the way to Karnet Prison Farm and ask where are the monks. [laughter] It was very embarrassing. Luckily, there weren't any monks in it. But anyway, I challenged this guy, I said, "Okay, in this prison, who is the most difficult person you have to deal with?" The prisoner I challenged was with a number of other prisoners. He said, "The chief officer. The chief officer, my job is to serve him tea and coffee every day. That's my job in prison. I hate that guy. He's always really nasty." He told me a story which happened a week before. One of the prisoners in Karnet, he hardly ever had a visit from his family because it's such a hard place to get to. There's no public transport and if you're poor and haven't got a car you have to find a friend who can actually take you all that way. It's a difficult place to get to. He said this man's wife had managed to get a lift to come and see him, but before you can go and see your relations in prison you have to check in, say your name, go through all the security stuff. The chief officer had seen this woman checking in and knew that she had come to see this prisoner and decided to be cruel to the prisoner. On the PA system he said so-and-so, I've got a job for you on the other side of Karnet Prison Farm and sent him to a place where the PA system didn't reach. It's a huge prison farm. He did it on purpose because as soon as his wife had checked in the PA system announced prisoner so-and-so, your wife is here, please go to the visitor's area, but he couldn't hear it from where he'd been sent. The message was repeated two or three times. There was a search to try and find him. They did find him. By the time they found him and he came back visiting hours are over. Better luck next time. He said, "The chief officer did this on purpose with no reason other than spite and trying to give the prisoners a harder time than they deserved. That's why, in that time in prison, he was called a dog." I said, "You hate him?" He said, "Yes. Really big time. He's so difficult. He never respects us, never says anything to us. He always puts us down and treats us like dirt." I said, "Great. This is a challenge. You meet him every day serving tea and coffee. Be kind to him. Don't embrace him with your arms, you'll get in trouble that way, but at least you can embrace him with your heart." I said, "How you can do that is every time you serve a cup of tea or coffee try and put some love and care into that tea or coffee. Try and make it the most beautiful, delicious cup of coffee you possibly can make. Find out what he likes and be kind. Get lots of love and compassion whenever you serve him tea and coffee." So all credit to this prisoner, he tried it, for a week. When I came back after one week, "How is it going?" He said, "It's a complete waste of time. I'm really trying hard to be kind to this guy but every time, even if I put lots of effort into making a nice cup of tea and coffee, he completely ignores me as if I don't exist, as if I'm lower than a cockroach. He even says to the cockroach get out of here, but not me." So I told him, "Carry on." It was about, I'm not sure how long, maybe a couple of months, I had to encourage him and force him to do this, before we got what I call the big breakthrough. One day I actually came to visit and he couldn't wait to tell me this. He said, he'd made this prison officer a beautiful cup of coffee with cream or whatever he found, just the type he thought the prison officer liked, and managed to find him some biscuits which he noticed the prison officer liked, and he said, "Here you are sir, have this coffee, and I've found some special biscuits which I know you like," and the prison officer said, "Er." He grunted. That was our breakthrough. [laughter] It was the first time he acknowledged that this prisoner actually lived and existed and breathed. That grunt, I said, "Wow, this is exciting!" That is the crack in the dam wall. I was right. It was only about two or three weeks later the prisoner managed to find a special cup of tea, a sandwich or whatever, handed it to this prison officer, the chief officer, who was a dog, and the chief officer turned around and said, "Thank you." All the other prisoners were telling me this and they were all looking at me and they said, "You don't realize just how the prison grapevine works. That has gone to every prison in the state." That this chief officer could say thank you to a prisoner was unbelievable. I won the challenge. I knew I'd win eventually. Even such a dog you can change into a cuddly little puppy with lots and lots and lots of kindness.
- Dog poo under the mango treeAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Simile: walking home from the temple you tread in dog poo. Don't scrape it off; take it home and scrape it off under your mango tree. A year later the mangoes are sweeter — and…
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it is the simile of coming to the temple and when you walk home you tread in a big pile of dog and what do you do with dog when it gets on your shoes number one do not absolutely forbidden in buddhism breaking the precept of wisdom you don't scrape it off your shoes you must always take it home with you and only scrape it off when you get to your garden and scrape it off under the flowers or the apple tree or the mango tree whatever fruit you like that's where you scrape off the dog poo because one year later your mango tree would have so many more mangoes they'll be much sweeter than ever before and whenever you bite into that mango and the juice drips down your cheek you must always remember what you're really eating and it's true you're eating dog that's where it came from but it's all been transformed into anger
- Paṭācārā, who lost everythingStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Paṭācārā, from a good family, runs away with her low-born lover. Pregnant, she tries to return to her parents to give birth but delivers on the way; the second time too. Her…
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But I always tell them about one of the greatest nuns that ever was. Her name was Patara. And her story was that she'd run away with her lover. She came from a very good family. Her lover I think was just a lowborn. But they loved each other were both very good. And eventually she had a child and they thought if they go back to their parents' house, you know, when they just let themelves or let them her give birth in her parents' house, that would actually make the parents a bit more amunable to her husband. But they she gave birth on the way. So they went straight back to their village. And so they tried that a second time. And again she gave a like a few days premature birth and I was in the forest and after the new baby was born. Her husband who you know just really looked after her, loved her to bits, went looking for some wood to keep her warm and took a piece of wood but it was a snake and the snake bit him and he died. So, so she'd just given birth to her second child and now she lost her husband, Snakebite. So, she decided she had to go back to see her parents. No husband had died. She had two kids. But then she had to cross a big stream which was in flood and she had like a two or three year old kid and a new baby. What should she do? So she put the baby or she put the the told the new kid no told her two or three year old son you wait on this bank and I'll wade across the stream with the new baby and then I'll put the baby down on the other side and come for you and if I if you see me waving or something then just come straight away. So she got across the stream with her new kid, put the kid down sort of in a safe place on the dry bank, and then waited back again to get her elder son. But as she was midstream, she saw a big eagle come and swoop on her little baby. And of course, she was frantic. She waved her hands around trying to scare the bird away. But instead, the bird wasn't scared. She was in the middle of the stream. So, the bird took away her baby. And her 2-year-old kid thought mommy was calling him and weded into the river and got swept away. So, now she lost two kids. And if that wasn't bad enough, when she was trying to make her way back to her village that she heard from somebody there had been a big storm in that village the night before and her two parents had been killed in the storm. She'd lost her two children, parents and her husband on the same day. Now you can imagine what grief does to you. She went mad, crazy. She didn't know what to do, where to go. But eventually, she wandered into the temple totally naked and screaming her head off. And she when she walked into the temple, the Buddha was giving a sermon. And so people there at the edge of the the crowd, the congregation, the audience said, "You can't come in here. You're badly dressed. you're crazy. But the Buddha said, "No, let her in." You know, she was a young woman, you know, just given birth to a couple of children, maybe in her 20ies, and the Buddha out of kindness said, "Let her in." And one of the monks got his robe and put it around her so she was a little bit more uh decent. And that was the start of Patara's um entry into being a a nun. And one of the reasons I tell that story as a great tragedy, great grief. But then that nun became one of the most famous teachers in the whole of the nuns community. cuz this is just not what other people tell me cuz I remember just reading all these stories of great nuns in the time of the Buddha. And I think many of you may be able to relate to this. Sometimes you've been meditating and meditating and meditating and practicing going on retreats but sometimes you're getting nowhere. You feel my meditation a brah talks about these nimitas and janna and stuff like that. I've got nowhere near that. Why not? And this was some of the nuns were like that. And then they said, you know, in their little record of their enlightenment that this great nun came and taught them how to meditate. And they were just enlightened within a few days. And that nun's name was Patara. That was her amazing teacher.
- 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
- The bat-cave papayaStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: As a young monk Ajahn Brahm spent about six months meditating in a cave full of bats; to this day he loves the smell of bat droppings because it reminds him of those wonderful…
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This cave where I spent about 6 months when I was uh a young monk to this it had so many bats in it and to this day I love the smell of bat poo. because it reminds me it's association with these wonderful meditations I had in this cave where there's so many bats. Number two, at the front of that cave, just as you come out of the cave, there was a papaya tree and the papayas on that tree were the most delicious papayas I'd ever eaten or ever eaten since. And the reason was because each one of those um u those papayas I ate, they were fertilized by thousands of bats. So I knew what I was eating. It wasn't papaya. It was bat poo. Transformed into the most delicious, sweet, juicy papaya I've ever had in my whole life.
- The cow that criedStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: After a meditation talk at Karnet Prison Farm, a prisoner — a murderer, born in Northern Ireland — asks to see Ajahn Brahm. His prison job is slaughtering animals; they always…
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there was a prisoner over there who came to see me after I gave a a a talk on meditation. He wanted a private interview because he was very upset that he was a slaughterer in that prison, and he was about to slaughter a cow. All the cows would be screaming and hollering and trying to escape, but one cow came in which didn't quiet which didn't quiet at all, which came in I I'm going to tell the story now. I've already started. Of all the cows and the sheep and other animals which this guy had to slaughter, that was his job in Carnat Prison Farm. He was a prisoner. He was a murderer, actually, he told me. And now he got this job of killing cows and sheep, the slaughterer. He said, "All the animals who came in would always cry and struggle to escape. They needed dogs and these electric shock cattle prods to force them into the enclosure into the place where the executioner stood with his electric bolt gun. And he said that every animal would always scream and try and escape. He said on this one day this cow came in without making any noise, head down, and just walked one foot after another slowly and positioned itself voluntarily to stand underneath the platform where its executioner stood. And this cow this cow then lifted its head and looked this prisoner in the eye. Straight eye contact. This was so weird, so unusual, that this man, who was born in Northern Ireland, he told me that he was stabbed when he was 7 years of age. That was his first stabbing. When the school bully came up to him and asked for the money he had for his lunch. He said, "No." And the school bully took out a knife. "Give me your lunch money." He said no a second time. The bully never asked a third time, but plunged the knife into this boy's arm. He was badly wounded with blood streaming down his arm. His first thought was to run to his home, which was just around the corner, where his father was unemployed. He ran into his house, screamed to his father, "I've been stabbed! I've been stabbed!" His father looked at the wound and took him into the kitchen, but not to dress his wound, but to take out another knife from the kitchen drawer, give it to his 7-year-old son, and ordered the son, "Go back into the school and stab the boy back." And he said that was how he was brought up. And that's why he'd been in prison many times. And he confessed to me that he'd killed people. He was a murderer. And now he was killing cows. When you find out where these people come from, their upbringing, sometimes your view of these people as bad people just disappears. Your whole perception of them changes. You think about them in a different way. But anyway, with the cow, as this cow got eye contact with this prisoner, the prisoner couldn't move. He was frozen. He'd never seen such a thing before. He couldn't pull the gun to execute the cow. He didn't know how many minutes passed by, but then something very strange happened. He noticed in the left eye of the cow, just above the lower eyelid, there was liquid welling up, getting more and more and more. And you all know how big cows' eyes are. The water got so much above the left eyelid, bottom eyelid of the cow, that it started to drip over the edge and down the cow's cheek. The cow was crying. He got so confused. Soon he noticed the same was happening in the other eye. On the lower eyelid of the right eye, there was more water coming until that too was far too much for the eyelid to hold. And that too started to stream over the right eyelid and down the cow's cheek. The cow was crying. He swore, threw down the gun, and told and said, "That cow ain't dying." When he came to see me, he said he was now a vegetarian. Here's a murderer who is now a vegetarian cuz he saw a cow cry.
- The truckload of dungAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: You come home to find a truckload of manure dumped in front of your door. You didn't order it and no one saw the truck, so you're stuck with it. You can carry it around in your…
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because that was relating to a particular story that if you do have shit happens to you in life, you can dig it in and you can make these beautiful things out of the most unpleasant aspects of your life, there's always something you can do. Now I use that as an extreme example to show that when these things happen to you or happen nationally, the law of kamma means stop thinking why this happened and do something about it. Dig it in, yeah, it's tough to do, but the alternative which is in that story "who ordered the truckload of dung", is people carry the shit around with them in their pockets. And you find if you carry dung and smelly shit in your pockets or your bags you lose a lot of friends, and you understand what I mean by this.. When people really get depressed, angry and upset about what happens to them in life, no one likes to be around you, that's not the way to deal with these problems