# The baby washed in wall acid

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-acid-washed-baby-bottom
- Themes: humour, monastery building, mistakes
- Life situations: parenting mishap, building project

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Building Bodhinyana's kitchen, Ajahn Brahm spends a morning acid-washing the brickwork. At lunch Ben Anson and his wife Hupa bring food with their newborn; the baby soils her nappy and Hupa looks for water — and uses the dilute wall acid. The baby screams and goes red; it was watered down so it didn't really hurt, but 'it really cleaned her backside.'

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

when we built our kitchen after you know I did a lot of the work on that building the dining room kitchen the lower building there and when you do brickwork you have to sort of acid the walls to clean up the marks of the uh of the cement so I was working all morning just brushing all the walls with acid to actually to clean them to make them look good it was time for lunch so we went out for lunch and we had the lunch was given by uh I don't mind saying the name some of you know that Ben Anson and his wife Hupa bought the lunch and with their two daughters oh they only had one daughter just a newborn baby and after giving us the lunch the baby sort of pooped in the uh in their their diapers so she had to take it off was looking for some water to wash her bottom the acid this poor little girl started screaming it didn't really hurt her because it was all watered down it wasn't like concentrated but she certainly went red but it did the job it really cleaned her backside

## Teaching point

Told as one of the ridiculous early-monastery memories that make life human and lovable.

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

Building the monastery kitchen, Ajahn Brahm left a bucket of diluted acid for the bricks, and a new mother used it to wash her baby's bottom. Red-faced but unharmed, the baby was very clean indeed. Life's mishaps are what make it human and lovable. Like a real forest, no tree is perfect, and that's its beauty.

## Source

- [Expectations | Ajahn Brahm | 15 April 2016](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV0wiAuOqik) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 26:25 to 27:43: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MV0wiAuOqik&t=1585s