# The 2012 doomsday bet

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Joke
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-2012-bet
- Themes: fear of the future, uncertainty, humour
- Life situations: anxiety about the future, catastrophising

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

When people in Indonesia worry about the world ending in 2012, Ajahn Brahm offers to bet his monastery against their house; nobody takes the bet.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

At the retreat people were telling me about 2012 when the world is going to end. The tectonic plates are gonna shift, there's gonna be tsunamis, there's gonna be earthquakes. So forget about having a mortgage, you don't have to pay it off in another two years. Of course it's not gonna end in two years' time or whatever it is. You don't think about that. In fact I saw in Indonesia, people were talking about it even in Indonesia, in the islands over there. I said, "Look, I volunteer my monastery and the whole Buddhist Society of Western Australia with all its assets, against your house. I'll bet if the world ends you get our monastery and the Buddhist Society of Western Australia's assets. If it doesn't end we get your house." No one took me up on it. Of course you don't, that's not much of a deal.

## Teaching point

“people are so afraid of the future … you cannot know what's going to happen next … so let go of the future, throw it away.”

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Nobody would bet their house on doomsday, which says a lot about how solid our fears really are. The one safe prediction is that the future is uncertain. That isn't a threat, it's a relief: you can stop carrying tomorrow's disasters around today and give your attention to what is actually here.

## Source

- [Four Ways of Letting Go | Ajahn Brahm | 09-04-2010](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USC5MJVZLy8) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 12:15 to 13:14: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=USC5MJVZLy8&t=735s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Cztery sposoby na to, jak odpuścić - Ajahn Brahm [LEKTOR PL]](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXR9emyoJlA) (Sasana.pl) — watch from 12:15 to 13:17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GXR9emyoJlA&t=735s