# Celebrate the ending of the stuck song

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-bangkok-pop-song-celebrate-endings
- Themes: meditation, music, endings, letting go
- Life situations: earworms, cant stop thinking, burnout

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

After years without music in a NE Thai forest, a Bangkok visa trip lets a pop song stick in his head for days. Fighting it made it worse; emphasising the finale until the beginning never returned taught him to celebrate endings more than beginnings.

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

somebody walked past my room uh with one of these radios and they were playing some pop music and I made a mistake of really listening to it and it was very delightful to listen to sort of some some song which was probably in the hip parade somewhere but the point is as soon as I started listening to it and enjoying it got stuck in my head and I couldn't sort of get it out and I kept it instead of meditating repeating the music to myself over and over and over and over and over again. It's the songs pop up and get stuck. So a long time in a couple of days being concerned with this the solution I found which worked for me anyway was actually instead of trying to stop the sound which didn't work. It made it come up more and more and more. I was trying I always discover when you fight something it usually makes it worse. When you try to get rid of it it stays much longer. So instead of trying to get rid of it, I decided to really get into it. And especially with the ending, the finale, the last few seconds, instead of D whatever it was and then carrying on again, I really gave it everything emphasis. When I emphasize the endings, then the beginnings never occurred

## Teaching point

What you fight sticks; what you fully end can rest.

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

After years in a forest monastery, a pop song heard in Bangkok stuck in Ajahn Brahm's head for days. Fighting it made it worse, so he gave the finale full emphasis, and it stopped coming back. We celebrate beginnings, rarely endings. Enjoy when things finish. Then you can rest.

## Source

- [Growing from Difficulties | Ajahn Brahm | 3 April 2020](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EQZ-nakfo) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 42:51 to 44:30: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0EQZ-nakfo&t=2571s