Last Saturday, we had the privilege of hosting Awakin Call with Brian Conroy.

Brian Conroy is a gifted storyteller who comes alive when he sees people of diverse faiths, races, and backgrounds working together. Founder of the Buddhist Storytelling Circle, a group of storytellers from the Berkeley Buddhist Monastery who perform at interfaith gatherings, he brings together his passion for storytelling with the wisdom of Buddhism and writes traditional and contemporary Buddhist tales. As a storyteller, Conroy has performed at festivals and conferences including the National Storytelling Festival, The Parliament for the World’s Religions, and The Buddhist Storytelling Festival. A life-time educator, Conroy taught theater and public speaking in the public schools in San Jose, California for thirty-five years. He received his B.A. and M.A. in Folklore from San Jose State University, where he also taught storytelling for 10 years. His stories bring together wisdom and humor that speak to audiences of all ages.

Brian's skill as a teacher of storytelling is evident in these YouTube videos (four-part series), and, in his workshops, he helps young people transform from being shy and self-conscious – to confidently standing in front of others sharing a story they learned, or one from their own life, that imparts a message of compassion, wisdom and/or generosity – or any other Buddhist (or human) values.

As you will see from those workshop videos, his energy is abundant, and his commitment is deep.

During this interview, we did get to hear a few good stories:

Story of the Quail putting out the fire:

In a forest at the foot of the Himalayan mountains a small fire spread throughout the forest in a matter of minutes.

A tiny quail saw the flames and flew to a nearby river, dipped her wings in the water, and flew back over the forest – and fluttered her wings sprinkling little droplets of water on the burning trees.

And the quail returned to the river again and again – each time bring a few more drops of water. The other birds laughed. A Vulture said, “You’re never going to be able to put out a forest fire with a couple of drops of water! Give it up.”

“I may not be able to put the fire out all at once,” said the quail, but I’ll keep trying again and again, even if it takes this lifetime and the next. You can sit and watch the forest burn if you like, but I’m not afraid to do the long hard work that will eventually extinguish the fire.”

Story of the Thief in the Woman’s Hut

On a frigid winter’s night, a thief snuck into a small hut where a nun named “Giman” – who awakened when he was rummaging through her meager possessions. She said, “OH, you poor thing! Imagine coming all this way on a such cold night! let me make you some rice porridge! That will warm you up!”

The thief was speechless, as Giman invited him to sit at a small table beside the fire. Because he hadn’t eaten a warm meal in days, he took a seat.

“I have little of value, but you may take anything you like.”
She served him a steaming bowl of porridge. As she spoke, the thief devoured that porridge. She said, I want you to give me something in return. Stop stealing from other people.

Take everything I own, sell it and use the money to start a business, then you can learn a right livelihood.

The thief was moved by her words. He pressed his hands together in a bow and left only with his vow to stop stealing.
Other highlights from the interview:

• For Brian, when he is telling a spiritual story or parable – it’s less of a performance and more of an offering. He is more of the vehicle for the teaching. He even says to himself before “May I be in service to the story” or “May the story awaken the hears of the listeners”

• He doesn’t like explaining the story or discussing it’s meaning – he wants the story to speak for itself.

• His theatre class was really about Self-Expression, about finding your personal voice as a performer. (And let me just add here, as someone who has logged in alot of time in acting classes, that most theatre classes are about acting characters in plays, so to empower young people in this way, is really such a gift! – or that’s my two cents.)

• He talked of finding a “Trigger” – a memory of an actual person or place that you’ve been that you weave into the story so that you are really seeing something you’re describing and that brings the listener into the story more. “If the story doesn’t come alive for you, it won’t come alive for others.”

• When he met the Venerable Master Hsuan Hua for the first time, Brian felt he cast a glance to him and he felt he looked right into his soul – he’d never had anyone look at him that way – as if it was to say, “I know everything about you, buddy” “You can’t fake it anymore." He told him he needed to dedicate his life to a higher purpose and do work that was significant.

• Storytelling seemed like a better way to utilize his performance skills So he started, as most do with international folklore. Then he started taking a traditional story and deconstructing it. For example, when he saw the inherent sexism, he turned it around so that Little Red Riding Hood is more empowered and stands up to the wolf.

He attended lectures by and became friends with Rev. Heng Sure, who shared interest in story telling – and invited Brian to teach at the Buddhist monastery. As he began telling Buddhist stories – the Reverand gave directions to:

1. Unearth traditional Buddhist stories and get them back into the oral tradition
2. Modernize them
3. Create new Buddhist stories.

*And here, I am going to interject what is in the 4 workshops on YouTube, he has those young people create stories from their lives – either something they did or saw, that has values or themes of wisdom, compassion, gratitude, or other positive human traits, and he teaches them how to distill the story, how to deliver the lines, how to stand in front of the audience, when to pause, how to breathe, it’s really like a program in self-expression. And some of those new stories, that they create, are as powerful as the traditional Buddhist ones.

More nuggets from the interview:

• There is a mindfulness preparation for the story – and he calls on Quan Yin Boddhisatva to be with him when he’s about to tell the story. He makes direct contact with every single person in that audience. Pay attention to each person – give each person a piece of the story. Genuine storytelling is eye to eye, heart to heart – that’s what it’s all about. Transcending the performing and get to a one-on-one communication. A kind of public intimacy.

• He tries not to make anything heavy-handed Buddhist, so he now likes to emphasize folds coming together, celebrate each other’s traditions and stories and food and culture – so it’s more about basing it on wisdom and kindness and virtue than any particular Buddhist principle.

His final words for us – in answer to the question, “How can we, at the larger service space community … support your vision and work in the world?” Brian’s response was,

“Tell your own stories. Communicate with your family & friends – speak with other people – connect with people who are unlike you – make connections with people off different genders, different political backgrounds, different religions, different cultures – and Service Space is already the role model for doing that. I wanna be like you.”

I echo that as I thank Aryae for his thoughtful moderating, Preeta for doing all that Preeta does (behind the scenes and also submitting some awesome questions!), god bless her - and so much of gratitude to all the behind-the-scenes volunteers that made this call happen!

Love & Blessings to all!