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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The bat-cave papaya

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Growing from Difficult Times | Ajahn Brahm | 21 April 2023

1 min read

The story — as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

This cave where I spent about 6 months when I was uh a young monk to this it had so many bats in it and to this day I love the smell of bat poo. because it reminds me it's association with these wonderful meditations I had in this cave where there's so many bats. Number two, at the front of that cave, just as you come out of the cave, there was a papaya tree and the papayas on that tree were the most delicious papayas I'd ever eaten or ever eaten since. And the reason was because each one of those um u those papayas I ate, they were fertilized by thousands of bats. So I knew what I was eating. It wasn't papaya. It was bat poo. Transformed into the most delicious, sweet, juicy papaya I've ever had in my whole life.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 34:57 (to 36:06)

A reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

A papaya tree at the mouth of a bat cave gave Ajahn Brahm the sweetest fruit of his life, grown on bat droppings. That's where wisdom and compassion come from too. You can't answer 'why me?'. You can ask what you'll do with it. Dig in the rubbish of life, and something sweet can grow.

In brief (our summary)

As a young monk Ajahn Brahm spent about six months meditating in a cave full of bats; to this day he loves the smell of bat droppings because it reminds him of those wonderful meditations. At the cave mouth grew a papaya tree whose fruit were the most delicious he has ever eaten — because they were fertilised by thousands of bats: 'It wasn't papaya. It was bat poo.'

Teaching point

What seems disgusting, dug in, becomes the sweetest fruit (the truckload-of-dung teaching in his own experience).

When this story may help

  • making use of hardship
  • trauma recovery

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Growing from Difficult Times | Ajahn Brahm | 21 April 2023 · 2023-04-22 · ▶ watch from 34:57 to 36:06 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions with machine-added punctuation; words left exactly as captioned.

The narrative is Ajahn Brahm's own telling, quoted from the talk captions. The summary and reflection are Being Mindful Stories's editorial notes. Please credit the teacher and link the original talk. Markdown version

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