Stories about understanding
7 Buddhist wisdom stories about understanding from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Cursed in the marketStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: With an afternoon off, a husband in Asia goes to the market for eggs for his wife, with a basket, the money and a 'mud map'. A young man comes nose to nose and abuses him — the…
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This was of the husband who had the afternoon off work and afternoon off work and his wife said, "Darling, look, this was not in Australia. This was in Asia somewhere. Hey, darling. Look, I I I haven't got enough um eggs to make the dinner this evening. Could you go to the market and just get me some eggs, please? You got a free afternoon. I Yeah, sure. No worry at all. I'll get you some eggs. But he never been to the market before. So, his wife had to give him a little mud map. Give him the basket. Here's the basket. This is where you put the eggs and here's the money. because you know you know sometimes you need to do that with husbands. [laughter] So off he went happily helping his darling wife to get some eggs from the market for for dinner that evening. And as soon as he got into this marketplace, just minding his own business, this young boy came right up to him almost nose tonose with a very aggressive manner and said, "I'd never seen you before, but you are the ugliest," is the young man saying to the nice husband, "You are the ugliest person I've ever seen in my life. You're so ugly. You make even the back end of a camel look more beautiful than you are. And I don't know what sort of after shave you've been using, but it smells like dog poo. [laughter] Now, actually, that's all of the nasty words which I know because I'm a very good monk. I'm sure you can make up more nasty words, but anyway, all those nasty words. This time in the story, I usually tell about the nastiest curse which I've ever heard. Actually, no. The second, okay, two nastiest curs curses [snorts] and all companies are from the Middle East. And I was just chatting with sort of a Muslim fellow once in an airport. You know, when you're in an airport, you got to do something so you get some really good stories for your next talk. So he told me, he said, "The worst curse in the Middle East, if you really want to upset somebody, actually the two worst curse, this is the second worst curse." And the second worst curse is to tell somebody, "May the fleas from a thousand camels infest your armpits." [laughter] The fleas, you know, fleas from a thousand camels infest your armpits. Well, it's got some style, I suppose. I personally laugh at that. Please don't do that to your wife, your husband, or please don't do that to your boss when you go to work on Monday. But the worst one was even more profound. And the worst, you know, the worst curse, I think it must have come from the Sufi tradition in the Middle East. The worst curse you can give to somebody is may you get everything you want as soon as you want it. And I thought after hearing that first curse in the second worse and that worst curse, wow, that really blew me away. May you get everything you want as soon as you want it. Is that heaven? It's not at all be because a lot of time know your life is about working hard striving to make things better. If you got everything straight away which was wonderful the meaning of your life will be gone. You can think about that when you go home. But anyway because it doesn't happen. So it's only an idea. But anyway going going back to this young boy. So really swearing, really letting this this uh husband just really just be so criticized, so badly defamed, cursed or whatever. And so the husband couldn't take it. Said, "I don't even know you. Why you picking on me?" And the husband just turned around and went straight back home. When he went home, bang the door, his wife said, "You're home early, dear. We don't want to go that stupid market ever again. Those people in the market are just so bad manned, so illtempered. I don't knowah is really angry. But of course, like many wives, you know how to deal with angry husbands. You just one of the ways to deal with anger is to speak slowly. And after a while, of course, he calms down. But anyway, when he did calm down, she asked him, "What happened to you?" And he said, "I went to that stupid market and this young man came along, he started again." And she once he finished, he said, "Oh, him." You know, he does that to everybody. That poor young boy when he was very young he fell over and hit his head and his brain damaged. The poor young boy can never go to school. Poor young man can never get a job. He can't find another person to share his life with. So we just allow him to come to the market. And he he curses me. Much worse than that sometimes. He curses everybody from time to time. He's only he's got brain damage. That's all. And as soon as he realized the reason he was being cursed, nothing wrong with the the husband, it was it was just a a sickness in the boy. And so he calmed down. And as soon as his wife saw that he calmed down, his wife said, "Um, I still need those eggs." So he turned around and went back into the market. And when he went back into the market, this young boy criticized him again, cursed him, sweared at him. But this time it didn't matter. The poor boy, he got brain damage. And so he went to buy the eggs and the lady selling the eggs. Don't worry about him. He's bad. Yeah, I know. What a shame. And he managed to get cursed for half an hour in the market. And it didn't hurt him at all. Why? Cuz he's being criticized by someone with brain damage. What's the meaning of that story? If your wife comes home from work and she starts criticizing you and cursing you, isn't I got to switch it around. [laughter] It's It's nothing to do with you. [laughter] Just assume that somebody's hit her on the head that day and she's got brain damage temporarily. Because in Buddhism, all anger is temporary brain damage.
- If you understand, you can explain it to the barmaidAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Heisenberg (via Brahm): if you really understand quantum physics you can explain it to the bar girl serving a pint — and she will understand. Same test for Nibbana: if it's…
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there was this very powerful quote by one of the most famous Quantum physicists Vera Heisenberg which even if you weren't a physicist everybody knows Heisenberg by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle you know at least I think you do anyway but you also know that quantum physics is incredibly complicated but this man he's quoted as saying if you really understand quantum physics if you really understand it you can explain it to the bar girl serving you a pint of beer in the pub and she will understand it so if you really understand Nana or God you'll be able to to explain it to somebody serving you beer in a nightclub and they will understand in other words if what you say is Goble cook it means you don't understand so when I gave up Christianity and became a Buddhist
- One leaf on a swept pathAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Chah's image: when you've swept a path and one leaf falls on it, it stands out, because it isn't tangled up with all the other leaves — you can really see it, get to know…
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Ajanch used to tell that story. I remember he said if you swept the path and a leaf falls on it why does it stand out? It's because it's not entangled. it's not sort of um confused with all the other leaves which have fallen down there. But if one leaf falls on there, you can really see it and get to know it and understand it.
- Raining cats and dogsAnalogy · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: People whose first language is not English, translating 'it was raining cats and dogs' word for word into their home language, laugh because cats and dogs do not fall from the…
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And a good example of that is when people who come to Australia and English is not their first language where they have to try and translate things like it was raining cats and dogs and if they translate that word by word into their original home language they start laughing because of course to rain means to come down from the sky and it never happen that a cat and dog has fallen from the sky from a tree may be but not from the sky and if you do translate word for word you actually miss a lot of the meaning of what was meant to be conveyed
- Sundays church, Saturdays templeStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Ajahn Jagaro marries a Thai Buddhist woman to an Italian Catholic. Asked how they should practise, he says: Sundays you both go to church together; Saturdays you both come to the…
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this was actually you know my predecessor AJ and Jacob gave this wonderful piece of advice when he had a Thai girl married to an Italian Catholic and they asked and they did a wedding ceremony for them and then asked what should we do you know for our religious life and he gave this wonderful person a Catholic married to a Buddhist he said on Sundays you both go to church together on Saturdays you both come to the temple together
- The boy who spat on the classroom floorStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A school friend teaches at a tough comprehensive in Wandsworth around the time of the Brixton riots. A boy spits on the floor in front of him and, told to clean it up, swears at…
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I recall one of my old school friends. He became a teacher, a school teacher, and he chose one of the worst schools in the whole of England. It was in Wandsworth, Wandsworth Comprehensive School, I think it was. Actually I shouldn't say it's the worst school because the teachers were very motivated. They had some tough kids in that school. That was a suburb of London next to Brixton and it was at that time they had the big Brixton riots in the south of London. So they had some very tough kids in this school. He told the story once that his class of kids came into the classroom one day and one of the kids spat on his feet, on his shoes. Actually, not on his shoes, just on the floor just in front, just after walking in. So he was quite firm, he said, 'Clean that up.' And the kid said, 'Eff off.' Now what would you do as a teacher you know, if somebody did that and swore at you. So he said, 'Go straight to the deputy principal,' who was the disciplinarian. So he sent the kid to the deputy principal. About a half an hour, an hour later, the deputy principal came into the classroom with his arm around this boy. The deputy principal had time to find out what was happening with this kid and found out the night before the father had viciously beaten his mother and she was hospitalised. The police had been around. The whole family had been separated. Here was like a young 11 or 12 year-old who probably hardly slept that night who just witnessed his father and mother, who he depends upon, the mother he loved dearly, just viciously beaten and sent to hospital. He said, 'Now you understand why he did that.'
- The caller who threatened the monksStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: A woman phones the monastery cursing and threatening to come with a rifle; Ajahn Brahm answers only with kindness, she says he alone understands her, calms down and tells him…
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I remember this one lady, no other monk would be able to talk with her, and she would come on the telephone...I think [?] knows who I'm talking about, and she would swear, F-words, bloody words, "Bloody monks, I'm going to come up there with an M-16 and shoot you all." I said, "OK, that's a nice thing to do." [laughter] Ajahn: I understood her. No, she's a really difficult person, but because I never reacted back, because I always react in kindness, she always loved me and said, "You're the only person who understands me," and of course she never came to the monastery with an M-16 to shoot us all. She was just taking out her venom on someone who would listen and not take it seriously. I could understand where she was coming from, the pain of her life, the difficulties of her life and embracing her for who she was. Then she'd calm down, become very peaceful and tell me all about her life, a very painful difficult life. She was not a problem. She was not a difficulty.