# Jumper leads on the prison road at dawn

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Story
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-elderly-couple-jumper-leads
- Themes: compassion, kindness, service
- Life situations: helping strangers, roadside emergency

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Driving the monastery road between the prison and the dam at dawn, the monks find an elderly couple stuck all night with a flat battery. Jumper leads start their car; the couple are overjoyed — kindness done because it needed doing, not for converts.

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

there was this old couple had been stuck in the car all night their car had had a low battery and they didn't know how to fix it and that part of the world that's kings we drive between the prison and the dam no one uses that road at night time so this elderly couple had gone out for a nice little Drive and got stuck in the middle of nowhere and they stayed there five or six hours all night until the dawn came up and of course the first car on that road with us the Buddhist monastery car what and our car had some jumper leads in it so he could charge up the charge up there their battery so that car could start again although it is so happy and almost nothing could convert to Buddhism if we were like that but we're not doing things to get anything out of anybody

## Teaching point

Compassion is for its own sake — joy follows without a sales pitch.

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

Driving past the prison at dawn, the monks found an elderly couple who'd been stranded all night with a flat battery. Their jumper leads got the car going, and the couple were overjoyed. The monks weren't after converts. It simply needed doing. Do kindness for its own sake. The joy is shared both ways.

## Source

- [New Year's Eve Dhamma Talk | Ajahn Brahm | 31 December 2019](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzP1mk4rbo) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 39:07 to 40:17: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIzP1mk4rbo&t=2347s