Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung? Quotes

“We should always be grateful for the faults in our partner because if they didn't have those faults from the start, they would have been able to marry someone much better than us”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“To think that you will be happy by becoming something else is delusion. Becoming something else just exchanges one form of suffering for another form of suffering. But when you are content with who you are now, junior or senior, married or single, rich or poor, then you are free of suffering.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Whatever you do in your life, Son, the door of my heart will always be open to you.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Any place you don´t want to be, no matter how comfortable, is a prison for you.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Why allow other people to control your inner happiness?”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Grief is what we add on to loss. It is a learned response, specific to some cultures only. It is not universal and it is not unavoidable. ... Grief is seeing only what has been taken away from you. The celebration of a life is recognizing all that we were blessed with, and feeling so very grateful.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“We all deserve to get away and have some peace; and others deserve the peace of us getting out of their way!”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“I figured out once that if you decide to have fun when you give a public talk, then you relax. It is psychologically impossible to have fear and fun at the same time. When I am relaxed, ideas flow freely into my mind during my talk, then leave through my mouth with the smoothness of eloquence. Moreover, the audience doesn’t get bored when it is fun.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Tugovati znači vidjeti samo ono što vam je oduzeto. Slavljenje života znači prepoznati sve čime smo blagoslovljeni i osjećati zahvalnost.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Krava koja je plakala : I druge budističke priče o sreći

“Wisdom is not learning but seeing clearly what can never be taught.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Sometimes in life, even saints have to "hiss" to be kind. But no one needs to bite.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“FORGIVENESS MIGHT WORK in a monastery, I hear you say, but if we give that sort of forgiveness in real life, we’ll be taken advantage of. People will walk all over us — they’ll just think we’re weak. I agree. Such forgiveness rarely works on its own. As the saying goes, “He who turns the other cheek, must visit the dentist twice, rather than once!”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“What is the essential difference between banknotes, coins, and chicken shit? None.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Grief is seeing only what has been taken away from you. The celebration of a life is recognizing all that we were blessed with and feeling so very grateful.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“To think that you will be happy by becoming something else is a delusion. Becoming something else just exchanges one form of suffering for another form of suffering.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“The hardest part of anything in life is thinking about it.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Any place you don't want to be, no matter how comfortable, is a prison for you.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Freedom is being content to be where you are.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Contentment is the only time you have enough.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Each of us can know only a part of the whole that constitutes truth.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Whenever the current is stronger than you are, that is the time to go with the flow. When you are able to be effective, that is the time to put forth effort.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“Fear is finding fault with the future.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“That is all we want to see, so that is all we do see.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties

“That cobra-patting Thai monk once stayed several months at our monastery in Australia. We were building our main hall and had several other building projects waiting for approval at our local council’s offices. The mayor of the local council came for a visit to see what we were doing.

The mayor was certainly the most influential man in the district. He had grown up in the area and was a successful farmer. He was also a neighbor. He came in a nice suit, befitting his position as mayor. The jacket was unbuttoned, revealing a very large, Australian-size stomach, which strained at the shirt buttons and bulged over the top of his best trousers. The Thai monk, who could speak no English, saw the mayor’s stomach. Before I could stop him, he went over to the mayor and started patting it. “Oh no!” I thought. “You can’t go patting a Lord Mayor on the stomach like that. Our building plans will never be approved now. We’re done! Our monastery is finished.”

The more that Thai monk, with a gentle grin, patted and rubbed the mayor’s big stomach, the more the mayor began to smile and giggle. In a few seconds, the dignified mayor was gurgling like a baby. He obviously loved every minute of having his stomach rubbed and patted by this extraordinary Thai monk.

All our building plans were approved. And the mayor became one of our best friends and helpers.

The most essential part of caring is where we’re coming from.”
― Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties