Caught with his trousers down in the bushfire

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• The ranger's spot check hit a fire drill

  In brief: After a bushfire-era Fire and Emergency Service certificate (Mitchell Roberts presenting), a shire ranger did an unannounced spot check…

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  the local ranger of our Shire decided to do a spot check on us, on our monastery, you know. Because to make sure we had everything going. And it just so happened that all the monks were in our fire suits, we had a fire and things going, we were doing a drill. It was true. And this ranger just said "Did you guys know I was coming?" I said "No no no no no." And they were in the middle of a drill and he did a spot check

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• The Singaporean monk, the snake book, and the witch doctor

  In brief: Singaporean monk in NE Thailand asks for the snake book — to identify the snake that just bit him. Fang marks swell; village has thrown…

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  Singaporean monk who came to stay in Northeast Thailand. And one day apparently he came into our library in what? banana chart and just said, "Oh, can I please have a look at the snake book? It has all the different species of snake in that part of Thailand and also describes how venomous they are." And as he was given a snake book, the librarian was just not really paying too much attention. And a Singaporean monk was looking through the books and then oh my goodness. That's the one which just bit me. That's what a single point was looking at the book of snakes to try and identify the one which had just bitten him to see whether it's dangerous or not. And it was really dangerous. So the other monk looked to the poor uh Singaporean monk's leg, saw the bite marks, the two fang marks and so already starting to swell. And that's one time if you're a monk, you're allowed to run. You're supposed to run. You know, if any one of you got bitten by a snake and I was me, I would have to run. Even though that might kill me, nevertheless, you know, just to save another person's life. That's so important. So, this monk just ran into the village to get a doctor. Now, these snakes exist in Thailand, so you have to keep some antivenenom. But this village had no antivenenom. They thrown it away years ago. Cuz when this monk came back with one of the villagers on a little motorbike, he didn't come back with a doctor. Well, it was a kind of a doctor. What you usually call like a witch doctor. a poor villager who didn't have any injections. He had this special medicine, a herbal medicine which was supposed to be really really powerful. And the herbal med herbal medicine man started doing some chanting. And he put this medicine in his mouth, started chewing it, mixing it with saliva, and then spitting it on this poor Singaporean man's wound, which was getting really big by now. And this Singaporean, imagine that was you. How would you feel? This Singaporean who was highly educated looked to the other monks and said, "Can I please have a proper doctor?" But then looking at this Singaporean, now this Singaporean and this witch doctor doing chanting and spitting over the wound, you could see apparently what the other monks told me. the the two fang marks started to get smaller and smaller and smaller and the inflammation got less and less and less until the inflammation totally vanished. The two fang marks disappeared and that Singaporean mark was totally healed

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• Holy water by the bucket — then she sold it

  In brief: Thai member Poonsup Wong, always sick, asks Ajahn Brahm for holy water by the 11-litre bucket each week. A Chinese man later rings wanting…

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  some years ago, there was a Thai lady who married to a Chinese man. Many of you may remember her. Her name, I don't mind saying this, Poonsup Wong. Her husband was called George. And Poonsup, she was a Thai lady, but always she was always very sick. So much so that, you know, once she asked me, "Can you make me some holy water?" You know, this nam mon which, you know, sometimes you sprinkle people with. I said, "Yeah, sure." She said, "No, not a little bit. Can you make me by the bucket?" You know, like 11-liter buckets, plastic buckets. So, once a week, I'd make her a whole bucket of holy water, cuz I thought she was very sick. I'm a very kind monk. [laughter] So, that's what you want, that's what I'll give you. And that for weeks she was having this holy water by the bucket load. And then I found out what she was up to. Cuz I got a telephone call at Bodhinyana Monastery from a Chinese gentleman. He said, "I want to purchase some of your holy water." I said, "We don't purchase it. We give it away for free. This is like monks. We're not business people." He said, "No, no, no. You sell it." I don't. "It's very good." I said, "I don't sell it." And then uh something started to click in my mind. "What are you talking about?" He said, "I get mine from Mrs. Poonsup Wong. I want to cut out the middle white man or middle woman and get it direct from source, cheap." And I found out what she was up to. The bucket of holy water, 11 liters, she was taking it home and just dividing it up and then just it selling it a odd. She had a nice little order there. So as soon as I told her that was the end of that game.

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• Cattamalo's real worry about the tsunami

  In brief: Ajahn Brahm is in Penang (he first says Phuket) when the 2004 tsunami hits. Afterwards he learns that his second monk Ajahn Cattamalo had…

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  I still remember when the tsunami hit, I remember that very clearly because I was actually in Phuket that day, sorry not Phuket, I was in Penang, sorry, that day when the tsunami hit and of course the tsunami killed a few people in Penang Island as well. The reason I remember that is because my second monk at that time Ajahn Cattamalo who was very, very concerned, he was ringing up to try and find out how Ajahn Brahm was, because I was in the tsunami zone. I found out afterwards he wasn't so concerned about me but was very concerned if I died he'd have to be abbot (laughs). That was a big worry. I remember just when I returned and the newspapers were asking all the religious leaders - why did that happen?

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