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Story · Ajahn Brahm

Ajahn Chah pushed their car out of the mud

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Higher Criticism | Ajahn Brahm | 16-03-2007

1 min read

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

pushed their car out of the mud now that's a humble monk who doesn't mind getting wet who can actually help other people doesn't matter if you're a big monk or big abber you can push the car and get mud and wet and soaked that's what a real is they were very very impressed of the real compassion of a monk so they didn't need to get wet but then it was only about couple hundred meters to the hall where they get to give the talk and there they saw a and sha sitting there completely dry not a speck of mud on him and they thought wow a Char left his body or made a double body like in The Matrix and actually pushed our car out out of compassion not only is it compassion this guy's got psychic powers we've seen it

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 23:08 (to 24:07)

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

A forest monk helped push devotees' car out of the mud. When they saw Ajahn Chah later, spotless, they decided he had used psychic powers. The real helper, his look-alike cousin, still says it was him, and nobody believes it. We cling to what flatters our pride. Be willing to hear the plain truth, even about your teacher.

In brief (our summary)

Devotees stuck in mud meet a forest monk who helps push the car out — it is Ajahn Chah. Later the story mutates into 'we've seen his psychic powers' even though the helper was just humble muscle.

Teaching point

Humility gets rewritten as magic when people want a miracle.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Higher Criticism | Ajahn Brahm | 16-03-2007 · 2007-03-18 · ▶ watch from 23:08 to 24:07 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

Caption notes: YouTube auto-captions: unpunctuated, words left exactly as captioned. 'aan cha'/'haray' = Ajahn Chah / hurray.

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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