# Christmas cards to the adversaries

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-clay-trucks-christmas-cards
- Themes: boundaries, loving kindness, conflict, legal disputes
- Life situations: legal dispute, neighbour conflict, standing up for safety

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Huge clay trucks with trailers thunder down the steep, narrow road past Bodhinyana; Ajahn Brahm sees one tip over and realises anyone in front would be killed, so the monastery fights it through court cases and legal wrangling. At Christmas the secretary, Ajahn Sujato, sends cards wishing a happy Christmas to all their adversaries — which shakes them, and earns the monks a telling-off for not going through their lawyers.

## The story, as told by Ajahn Brahm (verbatim captions)

many years ago, this is part of the history of Bodhinyana Monastery, we had a huge problem with clay trucks past our monastery. It was noisy but that wasn't the main problem as I keep on mentioning. It was the danger of those huge trucks with trailers down that steep, narrow road. And once, I saw one of those trailers tip over. They lost control. And I saw that and that was very scary. Because I knew if any one of you would come to visit our monastery or a monk was visiting the monastery or going or if I was coming or going, if we'd been in front of that truck, we'd have no chance, we'd be dead. So because of that I thought, we have to actually fight this, this is wrong. But I was very impressed with the secretary at the time, it was actually Ajahn Sujato. Because during all this time, in court cases and legal wranglings, because it had to get to that. During this whole time, it came to Christmas, and our secretary wrote Christmas cards, Happy Christmas, may you have a wonderful new year to all our adversaries. That really shook them and undermined what they thought of us. If you're having a legal case with someone and you send someone a Christmas card they think, 'My goodness what's going on here?' We even got told off, I think because we're only supposed to legally contact our adversaries through our lawyers. We should have sent the Christmas card to our lawyer who would have given it to their lawyer who would have then given it to the adversary. [laughs] Crazy system. We just sent it straight to them. So that, even actually your adversaries, you're actually giving some loving kindness because we realised it wasn't our, it was a common problem, it was our problem so we have to work together somehow or another. Even during a legal battle, no ill will.

## Teaching point

Loving kindness doesn't mean giving in; you can set firm boundaries without ill will.

## Reflection (in the spirit of Ajahn Brahm's talk)

Fighting dangerous clay trucks through the courts, the monastery's secretary still sent every adversary a Christmas card, and got told off for skipping the lawyers. Kindness isn't surrender. You can hold a firm line, even in a legal battle, and still wish the other side well. Boundaries without ill will tend to outlast victories won in anger.

## Source

- [Freeing Problems With Metta | by Ajahn Brahm | 30 Jan 2009](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OswcrsyGQN0) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 15:26 to 17:25: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OswcrsyGQN0&t=926s

Other tellings of this story:

- [Decisions, Decisions, Decisions | Ajahn Brahm | 9 May 2008](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOJVD0Lh-ZU) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 28:26 to 30:22: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOJVD0Lh-ZU&t=1706s
- [The Negativity of Positivity | Ajahn Brahm | 23-04-2010](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FjmTHULtrM) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 47:21 to 48:13: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FjmTHULtrM&t=2841s
- [Importance of Pausing and Reflecting | Ajahn Brahm | 31 December 2021](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifAjwBk1aA) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 53:06 to 53:45: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yifAjwBk1aA&t=3186s
- [Sisi Negatif Dari Positif | Ajahn Brahm | 23-04-2010](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQ7jFQqyz8) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 47:20 to 47:51: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoQ7jFQqyz8&t=2840s