# One empty room for emptiness

- Teacher: Ajahn Brahm
- Type: Analogy
- URL: https://beingmindfulstories.com/stories/brahm-empty-room-for-emptiness
- Themes: simplicity, emptiness, consumerism, metaphor
- Life situations: clutter, afraid of empty space

## Synopsis (editorial summary)

Analogy: why put a picture on every wall and a pot-plant in every corner? Keep one room in the house deliberately empty — a fashion statement for emptiness and freedom — and refuse to store stuff in it.

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

it's my empty room well put something in it no it's for emptiness for freedom and now we can store stuff in it no it's empty that will be pretty radical to have one room which has nothing in it just for the sake of emptiness

## Teaching point

Celebrating emptiness needs a protected empty space, not more furniture.

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

Why fill every wall and corner? Ajahn Brahm suggests keeping one room deliberately empty, just for freedom, and never storing anything in it. That's hard, because we love complications. He teases parents eyeing another child, then praises cats and dogs. Leave some space in your home, and in your life.

## Source

- [Entanglement | Ajahn Brahm | 17 March 2017](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfFCyORlZP4) (Buddhist Society of Western Australia) — watch from 21:51 to 22:16: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LfFCyORlZP4&t=1311s