Stories about unexpected
2 Buddhist wisdom stories about unexpected from Buddhist teachers, each linked to the original talk.
- Ajahn Chah: you're leaving in two hoursStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Training under Ajahn Chah, a peaceful monastery stay could end with him saying you are going to another monastery — not next week, in two hours — with no chance to prepare.
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I was brought up like that by my teacher ajanta you know you never knew what he was going to do next you never knew where you're going to stay next I was telling this to the monks you'd be happy in a monastery just meditating nice and peaceful and then agent child my teacher would this is how we were trying to come up to you and say oh you're going to the other part of time I'm sending you to another Monastery I'll say well next week no two hours and before I knew it I was in another Monastery the other side of Thailand it had no possibility of preparing yourself you had to be totally open to anything happening totally prepared for the unexpected
- The nun who hit the jackpotStory · Ajahn Brahm
In brief: Driving a famous Buddhist nun to Heathrow after a retreat, her driver puts spare coins in a pub fruit machine and, saying the nun has better kamma, asks her to pull the handle.…
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there was a famous Buddhist nun uh who uh was teaching a Meditation Retreat in England and after she finished teaching the retreat she went down to um to hro airport and on the way they stopped for something to eat it was was a lunchtime so they stopped in one of these restaurants which was next to a pub if ever you been to London or not to London sorry to England a lot of the places where you can get something to eat on a journey they got a pub next door so you have to go in the front of the pub to get into the restaurant so they they went through the front of the pub to get into the restaurant and had their meal I know the person who told me this story because she's from Sydney and she validated this was a real story it happened when they the driver came out of the pub she had a few English coins spare so she decided to put them in one of these slot machines the Poke machines just to get rid of the coins because you know the few little coins you can't change at the uh the currency exchange it's too small you know you change about6 and you have to pay10 commissions so you end up sort of losing on the deal but anyhow she put a few coins in the slot and she had one in the slot when the Buddhist nun came out from her meal and she said to the Buddhist nun you have got much better Karma than I have you pull the handle and in one moment of lack of mindfulness just on the spur of the moment sometimes you're thinking of something else people ask you out of compassion you just do it and that's what she did the Buddhist nun pulled the handle and the wheels went round and round and round and then first one stopped jackpot second one stopped jackpot third one stopped jackpot ding ding ding ding ding ding ding and all this money started pouring out of the machine and we monks and nuns were not even allowed to touch the stuff and she couldn't afford it was falling all over her she'd won the jackpot now you may think that's now lucky but it's not lucky cuz what happened next was all the patrons in the bar went silent this Buddhist nun in a strange Rob had won the jackpot and the next thing which happened was a b man took a little bell and rang it and announced to the nun that it was the tradition it was the rule which could not be broken that whoever won the jackpot had to buy a free round of drinks for everybody in the bar and it was the first time in 2,500 years that the buddist none had to buy a whiskey a beer gin and tonics for all the people in that's what happens