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Story · Ajahn Brahm

Exams kill by degrees

As told by Ajahn Brahm in Menangani Kelelahan | Ajahn Brahm

1 min read

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

graffiti which I remember outside the philosophy department, no, this was actually outside the physics lab in Cambridge. Graffiti in those days, you'd actually go looking for it because it was really profound. And that was - "exams - kill by degrees". It's a wondeful pun - they kill by degrees. They kill learning, they kill the excitement of investigating knowledge

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 28:15 (to 28:49)

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

Graffiti outside the Cambridge physics lab read: exams kill by degrees. Grading kills curiosity and makes friends compete. Ajahn Brahm escaped that pressure with public talks. If people like them, wonderful; if they don't, even better, he gets more time in his cave. Drop the need to perform, and stress falls away.

In brief (our summary)

Cambridge graffiti outside the Cavendish Physics lab: 'Exams kill by degrees' — study aimed at the credential kills curiosity for its own sake.

Teaching point

Reward-chasing hollows out the joy of discovery.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in Menangani Kelelahan | Ajahn Brahm · 2019-08-13 · ▶ watch from 28:15 to 28:49 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

2 other tellings of this story

Caption notes: Manual (volunteer) captions; occasional misspellings kept as is.

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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