Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties [Paperback]

Ajahn Brahm (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 30, 2005

The 108 stories in Who Ordered this Truckload of Dung? offer thoughtful commentary on everything from love and commitment to fear and pain. Drawing from his own life experience, as well as traditional Buddhist folk tales, author Ajahn Brahm uses over 30 years of spiritual growth as a monk to spin delightful tales that can be enjoyed in silence or read aloud to friends and family. Featuring titles such as "The Two-Finger Smile" and "The Worm and His Lovely Pile of Dung," these wry and witty stories provide playful, pithy takes on the basic building blocks of everyday like. Suitable for children, adults, and anyone in between, this eloquent volume wraps insight and inspiration inside of a good old yarn.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

More than statistics and theories, we really trust anecdotes and narratives. Our brains and beings are wired to learn deeply and easily via stories, and this splendid collection of 108 Buddhist-based tales proves the point with lasting, gentle, pervasive teachings. Brahm, a former Cambridge University theoretical physics scholar, was ordained in Bangkok at age 23 and spent nine subsequent years in forest meditation under Venerable Ajahn Chah. He is now an abbot and spiritual director of the Buddhist Society of Western Australia. In the dozen compelling and practical sections on topics like perfection, love, commitment, fear, pain, anger, forgiveness, happiness, freedom and humility, he weaves a long, rich tapestry of understanding using short threads of stories only a couple of pages long. Many tales lead one to the other, but each also stands alone. Resurrecting several "chestnuts" as well as crafting new stories, Brahm avoids the pitfall of esoteric, inscrutable renderings sometimes found in Buddhist writing. Instead, without compromising integrity, he favors modern cadences and references (e.g., iPods and the World Wildlife Fund) to make the stories sail along. Especially resonant if slowly savored, this is a wonderful collection that can be enjoyed by a broad audience. (Oct.)
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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Wisdom Publications (August 30, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0861712781
• ISBN-13: 978-0861712786
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #62,004 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 44 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Stories with Practical Applications, April 2, 2006

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D. Buxman "A Seeker of Truth" (Pueblo, CO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties (Paperback)

This is a terrific book of stories that illustrate many of the basic tenets of Therevada Buddhism. The author, Ajahn Brahm, was a student of the great Thai teacher Ajahn Chah and he brings to life the essence of Buddhist thought. The stories are easy to relate to, even if you've never spent a day in a monastery. The chapter on Creating Happiness alone is worth the price of this book. As Westerners, it can be difficult to reconcile the realities of day to day living with our overwhelming desires for control and happiness. We strive so hard to change our external world that we fail to recognize that no change is possible without inner change. This book will tell you how to look at life in a way that allows you happiness under the most difficult of situations. It is written in a humourous style and can be read straight through, or opened at random whenever you need a pick me up.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and Memorable, December 25, 2005

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Concerned reader (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties (Paperback)

This book reminded me of "it's Easier Than You Think" by Sylvia Boorstein in that it's a very accessible approach to talking about Buddhist principles. The stories are funny and also edifying. Some of my favorites (none are really duds) include Two Bad Bricks (don't let two bad bricks ruin the enjoyment of your handiwork when they're surrounded by 998 good bricks), the Mexican Fisherman (an American business professor trying to convince a Mexican fisherman to build up his business and accumulate wealth just so he can one day retire and buy a small villa, get a little fishing boat and enjoy his family -- just as he's doing today), Poor Me, Lucky Them (we all have our own suffering), and The Ups and Downs of Death (you'll just have to read it). Also, the sections on Love and Commitment and Fear and Pain are really lovely. It's a quick read and worth sharing.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung, November 3, 2005

By 

Piyal Walpola - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?: Inspiring Stories for Welcoming Life's Difficulties (Paperback)

Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung?
By: Ajahn Brahm
"Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung" is a book packed with inspiring stories for welcoming life's difficulties. It is essentially a "toolbox" filled with the most efficient tools for facing every challenging situation in life. However, the tools in this toolbox are much more effective than "material tools" we are looking for in day to day life to find happiness. This book is most helpful for us in life's many unfortunate situations in which we frankly don't have a clue about how to proceed without causing more harm and pain to ourselves and others.

The literary style is simple and easy to understand and the vocabulary isn't complicated. It takes true understanding of concepts to be able to deliver them in a basic, understandable way. This is how Ajahn Brahm writes his stories. They flow elegantly and the concepts are simple enough even for a child to understand. Ideas are not exorbitantly portrayed in an attempt to make the reader believe that it is very profound. The book only delivers simple, humble teachings that are for us to take and apply to our life. Born in London, U.K., having studied Theoretical Physics in Cambridge University, meditating in forest monasteries in Thailand, and spending time with prisoners in jails in Western Australia, Ajahn Brahm has experienced it all. He shares these experiences with us in a way that we can take the morals from his experiences and apply them to our lives. We all need guidance on the paths we find ourselves treading. "Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung" is simply a road map with directions that can help us take steps towards the path in which we can find happiness and contentment. This happiness that one experiences is not only a short lived one but an everlasting happiness or what he refers to as the path to "ultimate happiness".

Can you honestly say that you have not had a traumatic experience? No one can. From our childhood until we become senile, we have had many traumatic experiences. Ajahn Brahm uses the metaphor of a truckload of dung that has been dropped off in your driveway in comparison to these traumatic experiences. You know that you did not order the dung, you are stuck with it as you cannot return the dung and it is awful and impossible to endure. Ajahn Brahm teaches us how to take this dung and use it as a fertilizer day by day lessening the pile of dung in order to cultivate our metaphorical seeds so that the pain in our hearts, like the load of dung gets less and less day by day. There soon will be a time when we share the flowers of happiness or fruits of freedom with the others. These are the rewards that we gain by following Ajahn Brahm's simple words of wisdom as opposed to carrying the dung in our pockets day after day making ourselves depressed as well as depressing others around us until we lose our friends and loved ones.

If you want a taste of the style that is used in this "guidebook" for life, read the following quotation taken from Ajahn Brahm's experiences with prisoners while he taught in prisons for many years. Amazingly, all of Ajahn Brahm's students never returned to jail once they finished their sentences. "I tell my 'jailbird buddies' never to think of themselves as criminals, but rather as someone who has done a criminal act. Because if they are told they are criminals, if they are treated as criminals and if they believe they are criminals, they become criminals. That's how it works." (Ajahn Brahm, Who Ordered This Truckload of Dung, page 21).
Ishan Walpola, Toronto, Canada