Favorite Buddha Story?

[Ether]

Go ahead

[deci belle]

So the Buddha walks into a bar… heehee!!

and the bar-tender sees him and can't help but ask, "Who are you?"

The Buddha replies, "I'm awake."

[ajasatya]

in a very cold winter, a monk used a buddha statue to make a bonfire because there was nothing else to burn.

he was feeling guilty inside and all of a sudden, as he was watching the wood burn, he couldn't see the buddha anymore, just wood. so he woke up to his true nature.

Edited March 11, 2018 by ajasatya

[Prabhaker]

OSHO STORY ON MAULINGAPUTTA AND BUDDHA

When Maulingaputta came to Buddha for the first time he asked many questions. Buddha said, ”Are
you asking in order to solve the questions or are you only asking to get answers?”

Maulingaputta said, ”I have come to ask you, and you have begun to ask me! Let me ponder over it, I must think about it.” He thought about it and the second day he said, ”Really, I have come to solve them.”

Buddha said to him, ”Have you asked these same questions to anyone else as well?”
Maulingaputta said, ”I have asked everyone continuously for thirty years.”
Buddha said, ”By asking for thirty years you must have got many answers – many, many. But have any proved to be the answer?”
Maulingaputta said, ”None!”
Then Buddha said, ”I will not give you any answers. In thirty years of questioning many answers have been given; I can add some more but that is not going to help. So I will give you the solution, not the answer.”
Maulingaputta said, ”Okay, give it to me.”

But Buddha said, ”It cannot be given by me, it has to be grown in you. So remain for one year with me silently. Not a single question will be allowed. Be totally silent, be with me, and after one year you can ask; then I will give you the answer.”

Sariputta, the chief disciple of Buddha, was sitting nearby under a tree. He began to laugh. Maulingaputta asked, ”Why is Sariputta laughing? What is there to laugh about?”
Sariputta said, ”Ask right now if you have to ask; do not wait for one year. We have been fooled – this happened to me too – because after one year we never ask. If you have remained totally silent for a year, then the very source of questioning drops. And this man is deceptive! This man is very deceptive,” Sariputta said. ”After one year he will not give you any answers.”
So Buddha said, ”I will remain with my promise, Sariputta. I have remained with my promise with you, too. It is not my fault that you do not ask.”

One year went by and Maulingaputta remained silent: silently doing meditation and becoming more and more silent outwardly and inwardly. Then he became a silent pool, with no vibrations, no waves. He forgot that the year had passed. The day that he was to ask had come but he himself forgot.

Buddha said, ”There used to be a man called Maulingaputta here. Where is he? He has to ask some question. The year has passed, the day has come, so he must come to me.” There were ten thousand monks there and everyone tried to find out who Maulingaputta was. And Maulingaputta also tried to find out where he was!

Buddha called to him and said, ”Why are you looking around? You are the man. And I have to fulfill my promise, so you ask and I will give you the answer.”
Maulingaputta said, ”The one who was asking is dead; that is why I was looking around to see who this man Maulingaputta is. I too have heard his name, but he is long since gone.”

The original source must be transformed, otherwise we go on asking; and there are persons who will be supplying you with answers. You feel good in asking, they feel good in answering, but what goes on is only a mutual deception.

Source – Osho Book “Meditation: The Art of Ecstasy”

[pluto]

Once Buddha was asked, "Who are you?" He was such a beautiful man and the Buddhahood had conferred such grace on him, that many times he was asked, Who are you?" He looked like an emperor or a god who had come from heaven, and he lived like a beggar! Again and again he was asked, "Who are you?" And the man who was asking was a great scholar.
He said, "Are you from the world of gods? Are you a god?"
Buddha said, "No."
"Then are you a Gandharva?"
Gandharvas are the musicians of the gods. Buddha had such music around him - the music of silence, the sound of no sound, one hand clapping - that it was natural to ask him, "Are you a Gandharva, a celestial musician?"
Buddha said, "No."
And the man went on asking. There are many categories in Hindu mythology from Gods to man. Then finally he asked, "Are you a great king, a Chakravartin, one who rules over the whole world?"
And Buddha said, "No."
Annoyed, the scholar asked, "Are you a man, or not even that?"
Buddha said. ′Don′t be annoyed, but what can I do? I have to state the truth as it is. I am not a man either."
Now the scholar was very very angry, enraged. He said, "Then are you an animal?"
Buddha said, "No, not an animal, not a tree, not a rock."
"Then who are you?" the man asked.
Buddha said, "I am awareness, just pure awareness, just a mirror reflecting all that is."

[Ether]

@Prabhaker

Thanks everyone

[Leo Gura]

I like the one where some disgruntled villager who hated the Buddha sent an angry elephant charging at him. As the elephant was about to strample him, the Buddha gently held up his hand and the elephant bowed.

Always brings a tear to my eye.

[Ether]

28 minutes ago, Leo Gura said:

I like the one where some disgruntled villager who hated the Buddha sent an angry elephant charging at him. As the elephant was about to strample him, the Buddha gently held up his hand and the elephant bowed.

Always brings a tear to my eye.

At these times I wonder if people make up these stories or they are really true.

[Leo Gura]

@Ether Does it matter?

[Prabhaker]

1 hour ago, Ether said:

At these times I wonder if people make up these stories or they are really true

It was not a miracle; it was simply the memory of the elephant.

Time went on and Buddha started becoming old. Finally one night Devadatta told him, "It is time you should declare the name of your successor because you are getting old. Without a successor your disciples will break apart into small groups after your death."

Buddha said, "Do you have somebody in mind?"

Devadatta was in much difficulty. He had not thought that this was going to be the case, but he was very ambitious, so finally -- although he was feeling embarrassed -- he said, "Yes, I offer myself. I belong to the same family; our blood is the same and I have grasped everything that you have said. I can represent you perfectly well, and I don't think anybody else can be a competitor to me."

Buddha said, "The very idea is egoistic. I can only choose someone who has never thought about being chosen, who is so innocent that he could not even think of it. Certainly you cannot be my successor, so forget all about it."

But Devadatta could not accept this situation, which looked to him like a humiliation. He revolted against Buddha, and took five hundred disciples away with him -- but that did not make much difference. Buddha had thousands of disciples, and if five hundred had gone with Devadatta, that did not make even a dent in the great commune that Gautam Buddha had created.

These five hundred were the people who were also ambitious, who wanted position, who wanted to be declared enlightened -- although they were not enlightened -- and who were jealous of people who were being declared as enlightened. These were the people who had entered the great commune of Gautam Buddha with some egoistic ambition -- they left.

But Devadatta could not sit silently; he had not left just to retire to the Himalayas. He started conspiring against Gautam Buddha. He made many efforts to kill him. And that's what I wanted to tell you about. He had caught a mad elephant, not knowing that that elephant used to be a friend of Gautam Buddha when he was a child. It had belonged to Gautam Buddha's royal palace, and it was so heartbroken when Gautam Buddha left the palace that it simply escaped to the forest and started behaving in a crazy way -- the shock was too much. He had loved him as a child, and they were really great friends. They were always moving together; in the great garden near the river they were always found together.

It was almost forty years afterwards that Devadatta found this mad elephant in the forest. He managed to catch hold of it, and he thought that this would be a great opportunity; he would take it to where Gautam Buddha meditates under a tree and leave it there, because that elephant has killed many people... He was not aware that that elephant had gone mad because Gautam Buddha had left him forty years before.

So the elephant rushed at Gautam Buddha, and he would have killed him. But as he recognized Buddha, all his madness disappeared. He bowed down, touched Buddha's feet with his head, and sat at his feet, putting his head in his lap. Forty years of separation...! Buddha opened his eyes and he could not believe that his old, old friend... he had forgotten! And Devadatta could not believe it. He thought it was a miracle. He became so afraid that after that he stopped making any effort to kill Gautam Buddha. But he had no idea what had really happened.

[Ether]

@Leo Gura My mind might be obsessed with the truth, so it matters to my mind.

[Ether]

@Prabhaker Thank you.  

[kieranperez]

12 hours ago, Ether said:

At these times I wonder if people make up these stories or they are really true.

then why ask this question? lol

[Flicker_boy]

angulimala, a serial killer from the time of the buddha set out to kill him.. after he found the buddha walking down a street, he started to run after him to finish him.. but although angulimala was running and the Buddha was only walking, angulimala could never reach him.. after he exhausted himself, angulimala screamed at the Buddha, asking him to stop. To wich the Buddha answered: "I have stopped long ago. When will you stop?"

after that angulimala became a monk and attained arhatship

(the story is a liitle longer, this is somewhat resumed)

[Emptystickfigure]

The story of Buddha and his envious/jealous brother-in-law/cousin, Devadatta. He was the one that sent the elephant towards Buddha, and tried to kill Buddha by pushing a boulder off a cliff. 

Buddha just said that the boulder being pushed off and hurting his own foot, was his past life karma.

[Arman]

I like the one where the Buddha called upon all his disciples and took them to a lake for satsang. They all stood around him waiting for his instruction but it did not come. Instead, he reached down into the lake and pulled up a lotus flower which he held gently and quietly before them. He did not say a word. This silence went on for some time as the disciples sat in confusion, until finally Mahākassapa burst out into laughter and said "omg, that is soooooo Buddha." 

[Ether]

@Arman looooooooooooool