Being Mindful Stories

Joke · Ajahn Brahm

Free coffee for meditating by the corpse

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Dealing with Emotions | Ajahn Brahm | 15-06-2007

1 min read

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

I remember once when I think it was Ajahn Chah's brother that died and was being cremated, I told one of the monks - I'm just going to go and do some meditation by the corpse. He said "what?!" I said "I'm going to do some meditation by the..". He said "have a cup of coffee". I thought - that's really nice. And I couldn't understand why they were giving me all this coffee. And the reason way they were so impressed that anybody could sit in meditation next to a newly dead corpse, because they were just so afraid of that. So once I found that out, I always went to say I'm going to sit by a corpse, and they brought all this nice coffee. [laughter]. A bit of a scam because I wasn't afraid.

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 19:29 (to 20:21)

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

The young monk wasn't afraid of corpses, the impressed Thai monks kept bringing him coffee, and so he kept announcing his vigils. Fear is often learned from films and stories more than from life. When something frightens you, it's worth asking what the evidence actually says. And if your calm happens to earn you free coffee, enjoy it.

In brief (our summary)

In Thailand, where people fear ghosts and fresh corpses, the young Western monk announces he will meditate beside a body and is plied with coffee by impressed monks — so he keeps announcing it.

Teaching point

Fear is conditioned; without the conditioning (no ghost has ever harmed anyone, his research society found) there is nothing to fear.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Dealing with Emotions | Ajahn Brahm | 15-06-2007 · 2007-06-20 · ▶ watch from 19:29 to 20:21 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

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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