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Analogy · Ajahn Brahm

Seven out of ten

As told by Ajahn Brahm in 'Out of Control' | by Ajahn Brahm

2 min read

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

It was a simile.. when I had to set my first exam paper as a teacher I was a school teacher for one year. I often say that anyone who teaches at a high school after one year, any one would think about being a monk or a nun (laughter) I actually did it. Teenagers are really hard ... But any way... So I was teaching and I had to set the first examination It is not easy to set an examination What are you supposed to do? So I went to one of the senior teachers and he said look try and set the level of difficulty so the average score becomes 70 percent He said if everybody gets top marks so we get 100 percent or 95 or 90 percent it's waste of time, it is not a real test it is too easy. If everybody gets 30, 40, 50 percent that means they get discouraged, they lose motivation and they give up They think 'I can't do that subject' so he told me "please set the level to be about 70 percent" Because that would encourage people. If they get about 70 percent right that's the average, they'll be encouraged yes they can do that subject. And the 30 percent where they make mistakes He said, that's where you, their teacher can see their weak points. So in the next lessons you can address those areas where they haven't understood what you have been teaching. The mistakes.. And I took that to be a wonderful metaphor for life. If any of you get 100 percent in life you are learning nothing. It's not a test, you don't grow. If you get 40, 50 percent in life or less that's where you get depressed and view yourself hopeless and lose all your self-esteem. If you get about 70 percent in life that is the best. You are encouraged. Yes you are having happiness, you are having some success, you feel good about yourself you can do some things. but you are making 30 percent mistakes. Brilliant! Because that's where you learn. So if you got a partner, they're 100 percent they are a waste of time, dump them. (laughter) If they're 50 percent, Oh that's hopeless that's too difficult if you've got a partner that's 70 percent nice and loving and 30 percent they nag you and criticize you That is the very very best! That is the right level. Because that's where you can learn to grow together

▶ Watch Ajahn Brahm tell it from 20:20 (to 22:57)

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

As a maths teacher, Ajahn Brahm aimed for an average of seven out of ten: enough to encourage, with room left to learn. Life is like that. Seventy per cent right is excellent, in yourself and in a partner. Stop demanding perfection, and the need to control yourself and others falls away.

In brief (our summary)

As a maths teacher he set exams aiming for an average of seven out of ten: scores of three or four discourage children, and nines and tens hide the weaknesses he needs to address next lesson. Life is like that: you'll never get ten out of ten, and you shouldn't — around seven means you're succeeding and still have something to learn.

Teaching point

'Forward failing': mistakes are how you learn and grow.

When this story may help

Themes

Source & credit

Told by Ajahn Brahm in 'Out of Control' | by Ajahn Brahm · 2012-06-27 · ▶ watch from 20:20 to 22:57 · Buddhist Society of Western Australia

6 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

  • Two bad bricks in the wall

    In brief: Building the broke new monastery at Serpentine, the ex-physicist monk lays his first brick wall with painstaking perfectionism — then sees…

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    The story of the two bad bricks in the wall, twenty six years ago, twenty seven years ago when we moved to Serpentine to build that monastery down there we had no money, we were broke, and because... we owed money for the land, there were no buildings on that property. So I had to learn how to build. And I was theoretical physicist before, ok, in my head doing sums all day. Now I had to get out there and get my hands dirty and mix concrete and lay bricks and put on a roof and do plumbing. Everything we did. And even to this day, if any of you going into that main hall in our monastery, I am the builder. My name is on the building license for that. And it's still standing so that's pretty good. [LAUGHTER] So in particular, this story I had to learn how to lay bricks. Laying bricks was not a simple thing to do, it may look easy but it's so hard to get everything level. But, as most people would be I was a perfectionist. I had to make sure that brick was perfectly level before I went onto the next one. Sometimes one corner was high, you'd knock it down and another corner would go up. You knock that corner down then it would go out of line. You knock it back into line thinking it was finished, you notice one of the corners was high again. It was just one of those jobs which, where you couldn't get everything in the right place but you kept on trying until you got it. It took a long time but it didn't matter cause I wasn't being paid. So I could take however long I wanted. And when I finished that wall, that first brick wall, like anybody else you were proud, finished, you stood back to look at it and admire it, and it was only then when it was finished I noticed that two bricks were crooked. All the other bricks were straight, two bricks were crooked. So what would you do? What I did was try and scrape the mortar out so I could reset the bricks so they could be perfect. But the mortar was hard, you couldn't scrape it out. And the other monk who was with me at the time, Ajahn Jagaro, I asked him look can we afford, can we please afford some dynamite so I blow it up and start again? Bulldozer would do, push it over. Because...that spoiled the whole wall. Those two bad bricks, they ruined the whole thing. But we couldn't, I was stuck with it, we were too poor to do anything with it. So for three months, every time I went passed that wall I saw my mistakes and I felt so sad. I'd stuffed up. And the worst thing about stuffing up when you're building everybody could see it, you can't hide it. It's a big wall, out there in the open. So, every time there was a visitor, I would actually volunteer to take them around so I could, you know, take them somewhere else so they wouldn't see my mistakes. At night time I'd have nightmares about that wall. I would, I'd dream of it, because I'd really made a big mistake and everybody could see it. And it was three months, roughly, I'm not quite sure it's a long time ago now, about three months somebody else was with me and they saw that wall and they said that's a beautiful wall. And I just couldn't believe what I'd heard because for three months I'd been suffering so much with that wall and they said it's a beautiful wall. My first reaction was to ask them are you visually impaired, are you blind, did you leave your glasses in the car? Can't you see those two bad bricks, the crooked ones. And what they said next just changed much of the way I look at life and stopped a lot of inherent depression in myself. What they said was yes I can see the two bad bricks, but I can also see the nine hundred and ninety eight good bricks as well. And that really hit me, because I realised for three months I was blind. All I ever saw was my two mistakes and I just could not see all the beautiful perfect bricks which I had laid. And when that guy told me what about the nine hundred and ninety eight good bricks that was the first time in three months that I could actually see the bricks above, below, to the left and the right of my two mistakes. And I had to agree with the fellow, it was a beautiful wall, once I could see the whole picture.

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  • “This must be your dad”

    In brief: At a wedding blessing Ajahn Brahm assumes the older man beside the young man is his father — and is corrected, to the older man's…

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    Last Sunday I was doing a marriage service for one of the people who comes here regularly, and she's married to a nice young boy. You always have to get married to a boy, I suppose, if you're a girl. [laughter] Ajahn: I don't know why I said that, but anyway she was getting married... [laughter] Ajahn: ...and after the service, doing the blessing service, and I said to him... That's right, this elderly man came to stand next to him, and I said, "Oh, is that your father?" And the old man said, "No, I'm the best man." [laughter] Ajahn: He was not very happy at me.

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  • The postulant who tried too hard to be perfect

    In brief: A former monastery postulant tells Ajahn Brahm in Melbourne that he was so afraid of breaking a rule, controlling his body, speech and…

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    There was one of the men I saw in Melbourne, he used to be an Anagarika in my monastery down in Perth a long time ago. But he was saying when he was first there, he was trying so hard to be perfect. He was so afraid of breaking a rule. And that's why he got so tense trying to control his body, control his speech, control his mind. He got so tense, he couldn't stand it and he left.

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  • “We've never heard a talk in Sanskrit before”

    In brief: A group visiting from Thailand asks for a talk in Thai, so Ajahn Brahm, fluent after years there, gives one. Afterwards they're very…

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    I remember once giving a talk to a group of Thai people. And they travelled all the way from Thailand to visit this place and to give some donations and they wanted a talk in Thai - so I gave them a talk in Thai. And after the talk in Thai, because I was in Thailand for many years, I was fluent when I lived there. They all said, wow, that was so impressive, we've never heard a talk in Sanskrit before [laughter]. And I said, actually that was in Thai.. "Oh!" said the Thai people, we didn't know

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