The Buddha Told A Story

Ancient stories. Everyday problems. Timeless wisdom.For more than two thousand years, Buddhist teachers have used stories to explain some of life’s most difficult truths.A grieving mother searches for a mustard seed from a home untouched by death. A wounded man refuses treatment until all his questions are answered. A traveler crosses a dangerous river and then must decide whether to keep carrying the raft that saved him. A monk looks at a perfectly good cup and sees that it is already broken.These stories were told long ago. But they are about us.In The Buddha Told a Story, Buddhist monk and bestselling author Tenzin Arlo Cole takes the great parables, teaching stories, and wisdom tales of the Buddhist tradition and brings them into the ordinary moments of modern life.What can the story of the Two Arrows teach us when we lie awake worrying at three in the morning? What can an ancient parable teach us about holding a grudge, dealing with a difficult coworker, grieving someone we love, wanting what we don’t have, or struggling to let go of something that is already gone?Drawing from early Buddhist teachings, Jātaka tales, Mahāyāna traditions, Zen stories, and modern Buddhist wisdom, Tenzin shows that these stories were never meant simply to be read.They were meant to be used.Each chapter begins with a story, reveals the Buddhist wisdom within it, and then brings that wisdom directly into everyday life-with practical ways to apply it to our relationships, worries, disappointments, desires, conflicts, losses, and choices.You don’t have to be Buddhist. You don’t have to meditate for hours or understand ancient philosophy.You only have to recognize yourself in the story.Because the world has changed enormously since these stories were first told.Human nature hasn’t.And sometimes an ancient story is exactly what we need to understand the life we’re living today.