The bodhisattva at the bottom of the class

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• The young doctor who wanted to quit

  In brief: A first-year intern loses his first patient, a young mother, and must tell her husband that his wife is dead and his kids have no mother.…

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  The doctor, he’s not here this evening, he lost his first patient first year as a doctor, as an intern, came to see me, wanted to resign, “I don’t want to be a doctor anymore.” Why? He said, “Cos I had to tell, I had to tell this girl’s widow, this young man, the one he loved the most in his life, is dead. And your kids have got no mother.” And you could see just the pain in this poor young man’s face. He’d just come back from the hospital, I don’t know whether it’s Royal Perth or Charlies Gairdner’s, just having told, you know, this poor guy, you know that he lost his wife, kids have no mom, and that just hurt him so much. Can you imagine having to do that? He said, “I can’t do this anymore, I have to just give in. I can’t be a doctor. Cos that’s going to happen again and I just can’t face having to be the one to tell somebody the incredibly painful news.” That’s when I told him and said, “You’ve misunderstood what being a doctor is all about. If you think that being a doctor is curing all your patients, you are going to fail so many times in your life. You’re going to go through this so many times. The reason is because you haven’t understood what the role of a doctor is. The role of a doctor is not to cure, is to care. To care for your patients, not to cure them.” You know what I mean, if curing is the number one thing you're supposed to do, some of the interventions which happen in hospitals today – cure at all costs, forget about caring for the patients. If it hurts, it’s going to prolong their life unnecessarily, that’s curing. Caring is a totally different agenda. If it’s caring, a lot of times, I have to care for this person, it’s time to let them go. No more interventions. The quality of their moment is more important than keeping them alive. And I said, “If your job as a doctor is to care for people, you will never have to fail. You can always care for people, you can’t always cure them. Therefore you can always be a successful doctor. You will lose many of your patients. They will die. But you will be able to go to their widow, to their family and say – they were cared for. They were cared for to the max, and the family, yeah they will be sad. They’ll realise everything was done and your loved one died, being loved and cared for.

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• The principal who heard the three questions

  In brief: Invited to an education seminar 'for the free breakfast', he's greeted by a woman: 'Do you remember me?' He doesn't. A year earlier at a…

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  I was invited to give this uh seminar once on on an education day over I think the eastern suburbs education department or something. They were having a seminar. They had a nice hall. They said, "Ajent, if you come, we give you a free breakfast." That was good enough for me. So, I went over there for the free breakfast. And of course, as soon as I walked in, I'm not really sure why I was invited. They never told me. And it was like an education seminar. And the lady came up to me and said, "Thank you, Ajam Brown, for coming. Do you remember me? That's why this story comes up." I said, "No, I haven't got a clue who you are." And actually she told me the story that about six months earlier or maybe a year earlier I've been invited to give a a talk uh in Gossnol's uh I think it was a primary school you know that I go to all these places to give talks I don't really get much feedback but I went to this school and gave a talk and one of the uh stories I told was the old emperor's free question story now is the most important time, the one in front of you, the most important person in the whole world, the only thing to do is to care. And that really hit her very hard just like it actually meant so much to me when I first read it as a student. I remember first reading in this book by Leo Toltoy. And after I read that, wow, I mean, that was powerful. And I just got up from my room and just went walking around Cambridge for an hour just wow. It really blew my mind literally. So anyway, did the same to her. She was a principal of a school, a very successful teacher. That night, she told me after hearing me talk about that story, she resigned. She gave it up a job instantly. And then what she did, she knew that Gossnos is was a low socioeconomic area at the time. There were many kids had left school at a very young age and she wanted she kind of knew what had happened to them. They run away from home, boys and girls, dealing drugs, prostitutes living on the streets underage. And she thought, I can't just ignore this. So what she did was um now is the most important time. She had to do it straight away. And she went, you know, to these places in Perth, under the bridges, the places where homeless people hang out, especially underage, and she went to talk to them. But when she was talking to them, she didn't feel fear. Instead, she felt, "You are the most important person in the world to me. You underage prostitutes. You kid on drugs or selling drugs. And the only thing I'm going to do is care. How that care works out, I don't know, but just be kind." And she felt that she could now communicate with these people who were in immense social difficulties. And it was actually some of those kids were at this conference or which I went to and they were telling me just how it was the first time someone was listening to them. They didn't have an agenda. They didn't want to try and get them back to school or anything. They just wanted to listen and give these little kids importance instead of discriminating against them or just just trying to reject them or bung them in a school in a prison somewhere. She was listening. And when she was listening and get that connection with these underage prostitutes and drug dealers and kids, 14, 15 year olds, she connected so well with them. She learned what they the kind of things they needed, what kind of things they would need to bring them back into the school system. Not just an ordinary school, but being able to have times when they can come when they feel they want to come. and to have lessons or education tailored for them so they could feel that they were part of the education system not something just given to them but they were contributing towards it and she got the funding from the education department even when she went to see these people behind the desks in East Perth still that she remembered now is the most important time and the person behind the desk is the most important person in the whole world for her. And she really cared and that came out and she got the funding. And this little seminar was actually um celebrating the success of that program. I gave a talk, but my talk was totally overpowered by the next boy who gave a talk. He told where he'd come from and the pain and difficulties which he'd gone through in his life. And then just under the bridge somewhere in Perth, this lady came up to him and was the first person who did actually listen to him, not judging him. Never made him felt afraid. What do you need? What can I get for you? You know, I I have the resources to make sure that we can, you know, get you some food, a place to stay, get off the drugs, get a career. and he gave this very eloquent talk and he said he's got a place at university next year. When he said that, it's amazing where he'd come from and where he got to. I said, "I can't match that. Whatever I talk, that was a real person who'd been really down, had bad luck all his life, and somebody actually cared, listened, gave him that sense of importance, and now he was going to university. He's got his life back. And that was just one out of many. A girl talked next and she was just as good.

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• “That was the worst tape I've ever heard”

  In brief: Angie, later president of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, finds a 23-year-old cassette of one of Ajahn Brahm's early talks in the…

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  I remember that we had, I don't mind mentioning her, she's the current president of the Buddhist Fellowship in Singapore, Angie. You know, she's a very strong disciple of mine. She came to stay at a monastery down at Serpentine some years ago, and she was just pottering around in the library, and she managed to get one of these old talks of mine on the cassette tapes. And I think it was about 20 years ago, 23 years ago. And she thought, this is really interesting, I want to see how much this monk has changed over 23, 24 years. And she played the tape and she came up afterwards, she said, Ajahn Brahm, that was the worst tape I've ever heard. That was terrible talk. And I laughed and said, yeah of course, that's just when you're learning.

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• The senior monk who pretended to be angry

  In brief: A nun in the Thai monastery grows skin-and-bones thin, insisting fasting helps her meditation; the monks can't get through. A very kind…

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  I remember once there was a nun in our monastery in Thailand. Years and years ago. She had looked like a psychological problem. She was getting anorexic. Thinner and thinner and thinner, we were just really concerned about her. And whatever we said, she said no, she was fasting because it was good for her meditation. Or she felt healthy. But to look at her, she was skin and bones. Of course we were responsible if, you know I don't have that problem obviously, but if any monk had a problem like that I'd be responsible for them, I'd have to do something to make sure they're okay. But whatever we did as monks, she just would not listen. A senior monk come over from England and we said to him, 'Look, we haven't been able to do anything. [coughs] Can you help?' So he brought the nun to her and this was a very great monk, and he was such a kind monk and he looked at her and he started shouting at her and scolding her and I thought, 'My goodness, this monk, who I really respected, is getting angry.' And I'd never seen him angry like that, ever. I thought, 'what's going on?' He was shouting and scolding her and all sorts of stuff. And then afterwards she went away. And just as soon as she went away that's when he changed his demeanour and he smiled and said, 'That told her, didn't it?' [laughter] He was acting it out. And so I was actually quite relieved. The monk hadn't gotten angry. He was actually a good actor. He actually tried to use that as a skillful means. It really was out of compassion. But it didn't work. Even if you try, you just, and this was a very good monk. He had enough mindfulness and control when he played at being angry he didn't become angry. He could do it. But still it never worked.

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