The coffin stuck halfway down

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• They lost the plot (Guildford Cemetery)

  In brief: After the joke about funeral directors who 'lost the plot', Ajahn Brahm recalls it really happening at Guildford Cemetery: walking ahead…

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  I know you don't heard the joke about you know the funeral Directors, you know who couldn't find the gravesite They lost the plot For that actually happened to me once I think in Guildford Cemetery and As we're doing the procession from the gates and when they were going and just now we're going in the front end and the hearse was following myself and the funeral director and the northern mourners behind and they Were going and I said, no. This is a long way. He said you know. I don't know where it is And we looked over there maybe about 300 meters away and that people were waving at us there's over here

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• Wrong cemetery, and a hearse with three heavy passengers

  In brief: A former Sydney funeral director tells how hearses sometimes go to the wrong cemetery, and how on one body-collection run with three very…

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  one of the friends over in Sydney He was a funeral director before and he said sometimes sometimes. They actually do Go to the wrong cemetery So you know they've got no two funerals one is they a Fremantle one is up in a row when they arrive there They should be a few at Fremantle. Yeah, you should be up in away Well that's when they had to collect the bodies You know it's it, and so just to be able to to get enough. You know to make it worthwhile They had had to be three three bodies in the back of the hearse one So just taking it to the funeral parlor not there to the funeral well They took it there know some of the people you know a bit sort of you know just overweight and had three really heavy people and so the poor hearse It was actually so heavy in the back the metal of the front back bumper was actually scraping on the bitumen And you can't actually stop and unload somebody and pick him up later, so they're in big trouble there

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• 'Always Look on the Bright Side of Life' at a funeral

  In brief: At the funeral Ajahn Brahm conducts for a regular member, Mike Wright, the last piece of music — chosen by Mike, who told his wife — is…

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  except for that funeral service I gave for one of our members a couple of weeks ago, Mike Wright. Many of you if you saw him, you'd remember him— he was a regular here. And at the end of his funeral service— he told his wife this, apparently, that the last song, piece of music, at the end of his funeral service was from the 'Life of Brian', 'Look on the Bright Side of Life'. I really recommend that for funeral services for Buddhists. It made everyone laugh and happy at the very end.

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• The chanting worked too well

  In brief: Invited to chant for a dying Chinese man in Royal Perth Hospital's ICU, Ajahn Brahm chants his strongest — and the man goes into…

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  But this was the story of when I got called to go to Royal Perth Hospital, by a family of this Chinese fellow who was passing away. They said ‘you've got to come quick, he's really really sick, he's in the ICU, maybe only an hour or two to go’. So I rushed into the hospital, got up to the ICU, saw the family, just said ‘hello, I’ve arrived, I’ll see what I can do’. Went into the ICU, stood by the bed of this guy who was totally unconscious, obviously close to death. And I really gave full power chanting. Now this doesn't always work, but that day I was really on song. You know, that’s just like people playing football or tennis, sometimes you just ‘crack!’ - the ball always goes in. And this was one of those days I was just really on my game. And I chanted and chanted and chanted… He came out of coma. It was like a miracle. And it doesn't always happen, very rarely actually, but this time it actually did. He came out of comma, the daughters were amazed, he was gonna survive now. So when I went out, feeling all good about myself, and then went out to see the family, and said ‘oh well, I really did it, he came out of the coma, he's probably gonna live now'. And that's when the S.H.I.T hit the fan. Because these were the family who'd come from Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China. They stopped all their work, they got these expensive flights, a moment's notice; they came over to be with their patriarch for the last few hours of his life, they had already arranged the funeral service. [Laughter] Now they're gonna have to stop it and cancel it and they say ‘you have cost us a lot of money, Ajahn Brahm’. He's gonna die again, maybe in another six months, he comes back again and dies properly, but this time - no. [laughter] So they were not happy with me at all. All that way - stopping.. [laughter] I got no donations for the monastery, not even for the cost of the petrol in the car [laughter]. I never heard from them again. [laughter] So that was my mistake. What would you do, when you make mistakes like that, you learn. So now, when I go to the hospital, [laughter] I ask first of all, ‘what type of chanting do you want?' “Get-better” chant, or “die-peacefully

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