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Story · Ajahn Brahm

The cats and the building sand

As told by Ajahn Brahm in The Negativity of Positivity | Ajahn Brahm | 23-04-2010

1 min read

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

I remember the cats in our monastery. We got a couple of cats, and where they like pooing is in sand because if you come to our monastery, the Bodhinyana monastery, down in Serpentine, you know, in there there's gravel. Imagine the cat trying to sort of dig a hole in there, in gravel, to sort of, to do its business. So if it finds any sands somewhere, of course, that's marvellous, that's like a luxury loo for a cat. So it digs under the sand, and does it its stuff and buries afterwards. And the next day when I was mixing cement with that sand, (laughter) you get all the cat poo. You have to take it out. That's happened yesterday. So... but you can't blame the cat. That's just cats being cats. So, yeah, it's suffering having to take out bits of cat poo from the sand before you make mortar. But, you can blame the cat, that just adds mental arrow of suffering, getting angry at somebody.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 20:34 (to 21:34)

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

The monastery cats treat every sand pile as a luxury toilet, so Ajahn Brahm had to pick bits out before mixing mortar. You can't blame cats for being cats, or people for being people. Do what you can to improve things, but skip the 'it shouldn't be like this'. That anger is the arrow you can remove.

In brief (our summary)

Bodhinyana is covered in gravel, so the monastery's cats treat any pile of sand as a luxury loo, burying their business in it. The day before this talk, mixing mortar, Ajahn Brahm had to pick bits of cat poo out of the sand before he could make cement. You can't blame the cat — cats are cats; getting angry only adds the mental arrow.

Teaching point

Things being what they are is the first arrow; blaming them is the second.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in The Negativity of Positivity | Ajahn Brahm | 23-04-2010 · 2010-04-25 · ▶ watch from 20:34 to 21:34 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

1 other telling of this story

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is. 'you can blame the cat' probably = 'you can't blame the cat'.

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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