About Buddhist Tales (or Jataka Tales) The Jataka tales date back to the third century BC and are considered the oldest form of story-narrating practice. Lack of literacy in those days necessitated the appointment of Jataka storytellers known as Jataka bhanakas. The Jataka bhanakas would travel far and wide to propagate the message of kindness, compassion, generosity, non-violence, self-sacrifice, charity, refrainment from greed etc. through these stories. The Buddha himself used jataka stories to explain concepts like kamma and rebirth and to emphasize the importance of certain moral values. The Jataka tales depict the Buddha in several of his births in the form of animals. These stories, though simple, are high on moral content considered good for one's emotional, moral and spiritual health. The Buddha is the protagonist and the central character in each of these stories. Over a couple of thousand years old, the Jataka tales are just as relevant in content in the modern times. Perhaps, even more so. Living in fragmented and nucleus families, children grow up on a staple diet of violence and other negative traits they pick up from the TV. They do not have the luxury of having the good ol' granny to educate them with moral teachings imparted by such stories. In cultures where joint family systems are in practice, one would find children well endowed with moral bearings and emotional strength. The Jataka tales have stood the test of time and will continue to do so, as long as man remains in material pursuit and is led by greed and selfishness. Changing times have necessitated the use of new technology to narrate these Jataka tales to the young generation, which we have through the medium of animated stories.
All ancient civilizations had taken upon them the responsibility of maintaining moral values in society. Though they had different value systems, yet a common factor in those times was propagating moral teachings through storytelling. In Buddhist communities too, Jataka tales were a major source for inculcating in people a deep sense of moral values.
The Blind Men and the Elephant A number of disciples went to the Buddha and said, "Sir, there are living here in Savatthi many wandering hermits and scholars who indulge in constant dispute, some saying that the world is infinite and eternal and others that it is finite and not eternal, some saying that the soul dies with the body and others that it lives on forever, and so forth. What, Sir, would you say concerning them?" The Buddha answered, "Once upon a time there was a certain raja who called to his servant and said, 'Come, good fellow, go and gather together in one place all the men of Savatthi who were born blind... and show them an elephant.' 'Very good, sire,' replied the servant, and he did as he was told. He said to the blind men assembled there, 'Here is an elephant,' and to one man he presented the head of the elephant, to another its ears, to another a tusk, to another the trunk, the foot, back, tail, and tuft of the tail, saying to each one that that was the elephant. "When the blind men had felt the elephant, the raja went to each of them and said to each, 'Well, blind man, have you seen the elephant? Tell me, what sort of thing is an elephant?' "Thereupon the men who were presented with the head answered, 'Sire, an elephant is like a pot.' And the men who had observed the ear replied, 'An elephant is like a winnowing basket.' Those who had been presented with a tusk said it was a ploughshare. Those who knew only the trunk said it was a plough; others said the body was a grainery; the foot, a pillar; the back, a mortar; the tail, a pestle, the tuft of the tail, a brush. "Then they began to quarrel, shouting, 'Yes it is!' 'No, it is not!' 'An elephant is not that!' 'Yes, it's like that!' and so on, till they came to blows over the matter. "Brethren, the raja was delighted with the scene. "Just so are these preachers and scholars holding various views blind and unseeing.... In their ignorance they are by nature quarrelsome, wrangling, and disputatious, each maintaining reality is thus and thus." Then the Exalted One rendered this meaning by uttering this verse of uplift, O how they cling and wrangle, some who claim For preacher and monk the honored name! For, quarreling, each to his view they cling. Such folk see only one side of a thing.
Zen has a similar famous story.
A Master saw a disciple who was very zealous in meditation.
The Master said: "Virtuous one, what is your aim in practicing Zazen (meditation)?
The disciple said: "My aim is to become a Buddha."
The the Master picked up a tile and began to polish it on a stone in front of the hermitage.
The disciple said: "What is the Master doing?"
The Master said: "I am polishing this tile to make it a mirror."
The disciple said: "How can you make a mirror by polishing a tile?"
The Master replied: "How can you make a Buddha by practicing Zazen?"
/\
There is a wonderful little story about two monks who lived together in a monastery for many years; they were great friends. Then they died within a few months of one another. One of them got reborn in the heaven realms, the other monk got reborn as a worm in a dung pile. The one up in the heaven realms was having a wonderful time, enjoying all the heavenly pleasures. But he started thinking about his friend, "I wonder where my old mate has gone?" So he scanned all of the heaven realms, but could not find a trace of his friend. Then he scanned the realm of human beings, but he could not see any trace of his friend there, so he looked in the realm of animals and then of insects. Finally he found him, reborn as a worm in a dung pile... Wow! He thought: "I am going to help my friend. I am going to go down there to that dung pile and take him up to the heavenly realm so he too can enjoy the heavenly pleasures and bliss of living in these wonderful realms."
So he went down to the dung pile and called his mate. And the little worm wriggled out and said: "Who are you?", "I am your friend. We used to be monks together in a past life, and I have come up to take you to the heaven realms where life is wonderful and blissful." But the worm said: "Go away, get lost!" "But I am your friend, and I live in the heaven realms," and he described the heaven realms to him. But the worm said: "No thank you, I am quite happy here in my dung pile. Please go away." Then the heavenly being thought: "Well if I could only just grab hold of him and take him up to the heaven realms, he could see for himself." So he grabbed hold of the worm and started tugging at him; and the harder he tugged, the harder that worm clung to his pile of dung.
Do you get the moral of the story? How many of us are attached to our pile of dung?
found:-
http://www.viewonbuddhism.org/resources/buddhist_stories.html
"A woman who practices reciting Buddha Amitabha's name, is very tough and recites "NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA" three times daily. Although she is doing this practice for over 10 years, she is still quite mean, shouting at people all the time. She starts her practice lighting incense and hitting a little bell.
A friend wanted to teach her a lesson, and just as she began her recitation, he came to her door and called out: "miss Nuyen, miss Nuyen!".
As this was the time for her practice she got annoyed, but she said to herself: "I have to struggle against my anger, so I will just ignore it." And she continued: "NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA, NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA..."
But the man continued to shout her name, and she became more and more oppressive.
She struggled against it and wondered if she should stop the recitation to give the man a piece of her mind, but she continued reciting: "NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA, NAMO AMITABHA BUDDHA..."
The man outside heard it and continued: "Miss Nuyen, miss Nuyen..."
Then she could not stand it anymore, jumped up, slammed the door and went to the gate and shouted: "Why do you have to behave like that? I am doing my practice and you keep on shouting my name over and over!"
The gentleman smiled at her and said: "I just called your name for ten minutes and you are so angry. You have been calling Amitabha Buddha's name for more then ten years now; just imagine how angry he must be by now!"
Eight Earthly Winds
There was a well-known scholar who practiced Buddhism and befriended a chan master. Thinking that he had made great stride in his cultivation, he wrote a poem and asked his attendant to deliver it to the master who lived across the river. The master opened the letter and read the short poem aloud:
"Unmoved by the eight worldly winds, [1]
Serenely I sit on the purplish gold terrace."
A smile broke up on the lips of the master. Picking up an ink brush, he scribbled the word "fart" across the letter and asked that it be delivered back to the scholar.
The scholar was upset and went across the river right away to reprimand the master for being rude. The master laughed as he said, "You said you are no longer moved by the eight worldly winds and yet with just one 'fart', you ran across the river like a rat!"
[1] Eight worldly winds/concerns: Gain and loss, honor and disgrace, praise and blame, happiness and pain.
nice Ven Hai Tao say Buddhist stories:-
海涛法师讲故事
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVqVs7zRa4o&feature=related
/\
çŽ°ä»£å› æžœå®žå½• Modern records of cause and effect.
http://www.chinese-sutra.url.tw/gbsdiksl.htm
49(?) stories of cause and effect. BEST!
/\
a variation of the first story on blind men and the elephant
THE PARABLE OF THE ELEPHANT.
Açvaghosha saw that every eye was intent upon him, and so he told the story of the white Elephant. He said:
"There was a noble and mighty elephant, an elephant white in color, with a strong trunk and long tusks, trained by a good master, and willing and serviceable in all the work that elephants are put to. And this noble and mighty elephant being led by his guide, the good master who had trained him, came to the land of the blind. And it was noised about in the land of the blind that the noble and mighty elephant, the king of all beasts, the wisest of all animals, the strongest and yet the meekest and kindliest of creatures, had made his appearance in their country. So the wise men and teachers of the blind came to the place where the elephant was and every one began to investigate his shape and figure and form. And when
the elephant was gone they met and discussed the problem of the noble and mighty beast, and there were some who said he was like a great thick snake; others said he was like a snake of medium size. The former had felt the trunk, the latter the tail. Further there were some who claimed that his figure was like that of a high column, others declared he was large and bulky like a big barrel, still others maintained he was smooth and hard but tapering. Some of the blind had taken hold of one of the legs, others had reached the main body, and still others had touched the tusks. Every one proposed his view and they disputed and controverted, and wrangled, and litigated, and bickered, and quarreled, and called each other names, and each one imprecated all the others, and each one denounced all the others, and they abused and scolded, and they anathematised and excommunicated, and finally every one of them swore that every one else was a liar and was cursed on account of his heresies. These blind men, every one of them honest in his contentions, being sure of having the truth and relying upon his own experience,
formed schools and sects and factions and behaved in exactly the same way as you see the priests of the different creeds behave. But the master of the noble, mighty elephant knows them all, he knows that every one of them has a parcel of the truth, that every one is right in his way, but wrong in taking his parcel to be the whole truth.
"Not one of these sectarians observed the fact that the elephant was perfectly white and a marvel to see, for all of them were purblind. Yet I would not say that they were either dishonest or hypocrites. They had investigated the truth to the best of their ability.
"The master of the elephant is the Tathâgata, the Enlightened One, the Buddha. He has brought the white elephant representing the truth, the noble and mighty elephant, symbolising strength and wisdom and devotion, into the land of the blind, and he who listens to the Tathâgata will understand all the schools, and all the sects and all the factions that are in possession of parcels of the truth. His doctrine is all-comprehensive, and he who
takes refuge in Him will cease to bicker, and to contend, and to quarrel."23
* * *
When Açvaghosha had finished the parable of the noble and mighty elephant, the two kings returned from the summer palace carrying with them in a solemn procession the slain tiger, and close behind on a white charger decked with garlands and gay ribbons, rode the hero of the day, one of the generals from the South, whose dart had struck the tiger with fatal precision and death-dealing power.
"Behold the hero of the day!" said Charaka. "And had the conspiracy not miscarried the same man might now be an assassin and a miscreant."
"There is a lesson in it!" replied Açvaghosha, "existence is not desirable for its own sake. That which gives worth to life is the purpose to which it is devoted.
"Our aim is not to live, but whether we die or live, to avoid wrong doing and to let right and justice and lovingkindness prevail. Says the Tathâgata:
"Commit no wrong, but good deeds do,
And let thy heart be pure.
All Buddhas teach this doctrine true
Which will for aye endure."24
A SIEVE AND WATER (A Buddhist Story)
Key Ideas: master and disciple, self and selflessness, the divine spirit
The Zen master and his disciple made their way across the sand to the shore. The disciple carried a cup and a sieve. At the water's edge, they stood on a rock, the sea breaking around them in great, frothy swirls. 'Show me how you would fill the sieve with water,' the master said. The disciple stooped and filled the cup with water. He poured it into the sieve. Cup after cup he poured into the heart of the sieve but no matter how quickly he poured, only the smallest remnant caught in the bottom. Even that soon formed a drop and was swallowed in the vastness of the ocean. All the time the master watched, saying nothing. In the end, the disciple faced the master and shrugged. The task was hopeless. Now, the master spoke: 'It is thus with the life of the spirit also,' he said. 'So long as we stand on the rock of I, of myselfness, and seek to pour the divine life into that shell, so certainly shall that life escape us. This is not the way to fill a sieve with water, nor the human spirit with the life of the divine.'
Then the master reached out his hand and took the sieve from the hand of the disciple. He thrust his arm far behind him then launched the sieve as far as he could, out into the face of the deep. For a moment, it lay glinting in the morning sunlight on the face of the water. Then it slipped far below. 'Now, it is full of water,' the master said. 'It will always be so. That is how you fill a sieve with water and the spirit with divine life. You throw the myself, the I, far out and away to sink into the deep sea of the divine life.'
Maurice Lynch
From: RE Today, Summer 2001
A long time back, in one of his earlier births Buddha was born a monkey named Nandaka.The forests of the Himalayas were his abode where he lived with his younger brother,Chullanandaka . Both brothers together had a band of eighty four thousand monkeys, besides their old blind mother. Since they were kind leaders, the entire band lived in peace and harmony.
Once, while looking for more food, both brothers traveled far away from their abode. But, they sent back food for their blind mother regularly through other monkeys. The monkeys were careless and insensitive to the needs of the blind monkey. They did not feed her, and soon the old monkey became weak and sick. When Nandaka and Chullanandakareturned home, they were shaken to see their mother in such neglected state. Sad, as they were upon learning that their followers did not feed her at all, the two brothers decided to leave the band and live a reclusive life. A banyan tree, deep in the forest, became their new home.
One day, a Brahmin from the Takshila school, abandoning all moral teachings, entered the forest to hunt animals. He aimed his arrow at the mother monkey, and just as he was about to shoot her, Nandaka appeared before the Brahmin and requested to kill him and let his mother go. The Brahmin killed Nandaka , but again aimed the next arrow at the mother monkey. Chullanandaka jumped before the Brahmin and begged to let his mother go, offering his life instead. The Brahmin killed him, and finally, the mother monkey too.
Pleased as punch with his prize, he imagined that his wife and kids would appreciate his smartness and brave deed. Upon reaching his village, people informed him that his house was struck with lightning from the sky. His wife and children were killed in the fire. The Brahmin went mad with grief, as he had lost his entire family.
Moral : When you are cruel to others, fate punishes you with cruelty.
ONCE ON a time a nice young man used to travel from village to village, selling caps for a living. One summer afternoon when he was crossing some vast forested plains he felt tired and wanted to take a nap in the shade of a mango tree with many branches. He placed his bag of caps beside him beside the trunk and fell asleep. When he woke up in a little while, there were not any caps in his bag.
"Good grief," he said to himself, "Did thieves have to rob me of all people?" Then he noticed that the mango tree was full of cute monkeys wearing colorful caps. He yelled at the monkeys and they screamed back. He made faces at them and they made similar funny faces. He threw a stone at them and they showered him with raw mangoes.
"How do I get my caps back?" he said to himself. Frustrated, he took off his own cap and slammed it on the ground. To his surprise, the monkeys threw their caps too. He did not waste a moment, but collected the caps and went on his way.
Fifty years later his grandson passed through the same jungle. After a long walk he found a nice mango tree with lots of branches and cool shade, and decided to rest a while. A few hours later, when he woke up, all the caps from his bag were gone. He started searching for them and soon found some monkeys who were sitting in the mango tree wearing his caps.
Then he remembered a story his grandfather had used to tell - and waved at the monkeys. The monkeys waved back. He blew his nose and the monkeys blew their noses. He pulled his ears and the monkeys pulled their ears. He threw his cap on the ground and then one of the monkeys jumped down from the mango tree, walked up to him, slapped him on the back and said,
"Do you think only you had a grandfather?"
'The 12th century master Geshe Ben was renowned for his goodness and integrity.
Once, while begging for alms, a family of devout Buddhists invited him to their home to be fed. He was so hungry that he found it difficult to wait while his hosts were elsewhere preparing the meal. To his complete shock he found himself stealing food from a jar when no-one was looking. Geshe Ben suddenly burst into loud cries of "Thief! Thief! I've caught you red-handed."
His hosts rushed into the room to find him berating himself and threatening his hand with being cut off it ever behaved like that again.'
The Golden Plate
[Greed and Honesty]
Once upon a time in a place called Seri, there were two salesmen of pots and pans and hand-made trinkets. They agreed to divide the town between them. They also said that after one had gone through his area, it was all right for the other to try and sell where the first had already been.
One day, while one of them was coming down a street, a poor little girl saw him and asked her grandmother to buy her a bracelet. The old grandmother replied, "How can we poor people buy bracelets?" The little girl said, "Since we don't have any money, we can give our black sooty old plate." The old woman agreed to give it a try, so she invited the dealer inside.
The salesman saw that these people were very poor and innocent, so he didn't want to waste his time with them. Even though the old woman pleaded with him, he said he had no bracelet that she could afford to buy. Then she asked, "We have an old plate that is useless to us, can we trade it for a bracelet?" The man took it and, while examining it, happened to scratch the bottom of it. To his surprise, he saw that underneath the black soot, it was a golden plate! But he didn't let on that he had noticed it. Instead he decided to deceive these poor people so he could get the plate for next to nothing. He said, "This is not worth even one bracelet. There's no value in this. I don't want it!" He left, thinking he would return later when they would accept even less for the plate.
Meanwhile the other salesman, after finishing in his part of town, followed after the first as they had agreed. He ended up at the same house. Again the poor little girl begged her grandmother to trade the old plate for a bracelet. The woman saw that this was a nice tender looking merchant and thought, "He's a good man, not like the rough-talking first salesman." So she invited him in and offered to trade the same black sooty old plate for one bracelet. When he examined it, he too saw that it was pure gold under the grime. He said to the old woman, "All my goods and all my money together are not worth as much as this rich golden plate!"
Of course the woman was shocked at this discovery, but now she knew that he was indeed a good and honest fellow. So she said she would be glad to accept whatever he could trade for it. The salesman said, "I'll give you all my pots and pans and trinkets, plus all my money, if you will let me keep just eight coins and my balancing scale, with its cover to put the golden plate in." They made the trade. He went down to the river, where he paid the eight coins to the ferry man to take him across.
By then the greedy salesman had returned, already adding up huge imaginary profits in his head. When he met the little girl and her grandmother again, he said he had changed his mind and was willing to offer a few cents, but not one of his bracelets, for the useless black sooty old plate. The old woman then calmly told him of the trade she had just made with the honest salesman, and said, "Sir, you lied to us."
The greedy salesman was not ashamed of his lies, but he was saddened as he thought, "I've lost the golden plate that must be worth a hundred thousand." So he asked the woman, "Which way did he go?" She told him the direction. He left all his things right there at her door and ran down to the river, thinking, "He robbed me! He robbed me! He won't make a fool out of me!"
From the riverside he saw the honest salesman still crossing over on the ferry boat. He shouted to the ferry man, "Come back!" But the good merchant told him to keep on going to the other side, and that's what he did.
Seeing that he could do nothing, the greedy salesman exploded with rage. He jumped up and down, beating his chest. He became so filled with hatred towards the honest man, who had won the golden plate, that he made himself cough up blood. He had a heart attack and died on the spot!
The moral is: "Honesty is the best policy."
The Mouse Merchant
[Diligence and Gratitude]
Once upon a time, an important adviser to a certain king was on his way to a meeting with the king and other advisers. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a dead mouse by the roadside. He said to those who were with him. "Even from such small beginnings as this dead mouse, an energetic young fellow could build a fortune. If he worked hard and used his intelligence, he could start a business and support a wife and family."
A passerby heard the remark. He knew this was a famous adviser to the king, so he decided to follow his words. He picked up the dead mouse by the tail and went off with it. As luck would have it, before he had gone even a block, a shopkeeper stopped him. He said, "My cat has been pestering me all morning. I'll give you two copper coins for that mouse." So it was done.
With the two copper coins, he bought sweet cakes, and waited by the side of the road with them and some water. As he expected, some people who picked flowers for making garlands were returning from work. Since they were all hungry and thirsty, they agreed to buy sweet cakes and water for the price of a bunch of flowers from each of them. In the evening, the man sold the flowers in the city. With some of the money he bought more sweet cakes and returned the next day to sell to the flower pickers.
This went on for a while, until one day there was a terrible storm, with heavy rains and high winds. While walking by the king's pleasure garden, he saw that many branches had been blown off the trees and were lying all around. So he offered to the king's gardener that he would clear it all away for him, if he could keep the branches. The lazy gardener quickly agreed.
The man found some children playing in a park across the street. They were glad to collect all the branches and brush at the entrance to the pleasure garden, for the price of just one sweet cake for each child.
Along came the king's potter, who was always on the lookout for firewood for his glazing oven. When he saw the piles of wood the children had just collected, he paid the man a handsome price for it. He even threw into the bargain some of his pots.
With his profits from selling the flowers and the firewood, the man opened up a refreshment shop. One day all the local grass mowers, who were on their way into town, stopped in his shop. He gave them free sweet cakes and drinks. They were surprised at his generosity and asked, "What can we do for you?" He said there was nothing for them to do now, but he would let them know in the future.
A week later, he heard that a horse dealer was coming to the city with 500 horses to sell. So he got in touch with the grass mowers and told each of them to give him a bundle of grass. He told them not to sell any grass to the horse dealer until he had sold his. In this way he got a very good price.
Time passed until one day, in his refreshment shop, some customers told him that a new ship from a foreign country had just anchored in the port. He saw this to be the opportunity he had been waiting for. He thought and thought until he came up with a good business plan.
First, he went to a jeweler friend of his and paid a low price for a very valuable gold ring, with a beautiful red ruby in it. He knew that the foreign ship was from a country that had no rubies of its own, where gold too was expensive. So he gave the wonderful ring to the captain of the ship as an advance on his commission. To earn this commission, the captain agreed to send all his passengers to him as a broker. He would then lead them to the best shops in the city. In turn, the man got the merchants to pay him a commission for sending customers to them.
Acting as a middle man in this way, after several ships came into port, the man became very rich. Being pleased with his success, he also remembered that it had all started with the words of the king's wise adviser. So he decided to give him a gift of 100,000 gold coins. This was half his entire wealth. After making the proper arrangements, he met with the king's adviser and gave him the gift, along with his humble thanks.
The adviser was amazed, and he asked, "How did you earn so much wealth to afford such a generous gift?" The man told him it had all started with the adviser's own words not so long ago. They had led him to a dead mouse, a hungry cat, sweet cakes, bunches of flowers, storm damaged tree branches, children in the park, the king's potter, a refreshment shop, grass for 500 horses, a golden ruby ring, good business contacts, and finally a large fortune.
Hearing all this, the royal adviser thought to himself, "It would not be good to lose the talents of such an energetic man. I too have much wealth, as well as my beloved only daughter. As this man is single, he deserves to marry her. Then he can inherit my wealth in addition to his own, and my daughter will be well cared for."
This all came to pass, and after the wise adviser died, the one who had followed his advice became the richest man in the city. The king appointed him to the adviser's position. Throughout his remaining life, he generously gave his money for the happiness and well being of many people.
The moral is: With energy and ability, great wealth comes even from small beginnings.
Ages ago, there was a beautiful and dense forest known as Jetavana at Savatthi in India . Buddha, in those days, was staying in that peaceful forest. One day, some people came running to Buddha and said, “O' great one, an owl has gone crazy. It is chasing crows and killing them!” Buddha said, “You all know that crows and owls are sworn enemies. They just cannot stand each other.” “But, why?” asked someone. Buddha then told them the story how owls and crows became enemies.
The story of their animosity dates back to the earliest of times. One day, all living beings got together to choose their king. Humans chose a perfect, healthy and handsome man to lead them as king. The animals looked for the strongest and royal animal, and found no one better than the lion. So, the lion was named the king of the animals. When it came to the fishes, they chose a beautiful and large fish named Ananda .
Birds have many beautiful species. So, they had a tough time choosing the best among them all. Finally, they decided to name the wise owl as their king. All birds seemed to like the choice except the crow. When the owl's name was announced, the crow did not like it and he started to protest loudly. The crow shouted, “How can you make an angry-looking bird our king? Do we not have any wiser and better choices?” The crow's comments hit the red-faced owl hard. He got mad with anger. The crow saw that and flew away. The owl chased the crow, and ever since owls and crows are enemies.
The birds did not like the owl's behavior and decided to choose another bird. They finally crowned the beautiful and graceful swan their king, who was none other than the Buddha.
Moral : Anger makes you lose control over yourself, causing harm to others and yourself too